Halloween Resurrects the Old Neighborhood
There are years it is painless, even fun. This has not been one of them.
No, this year’s march toward Halloween has been excruciating, racked with indecision and tears, procrastination and panic.
I have in the past week visited every Halloween-themed shop in the San Fernando Valley, trying to please an 8-year-old who, until last night, couldn’t decide if she wanted to be a cheerleader, a rock star, a ‘50s bobby-soxer or a ‘60s hippie.
(In fact, turns out she didn’t much know the difference between a hippie and a bobby-soxer . . . only that one wears bell-bottoms and the other a poodle skirt. She finally opted for the poodle skirt.)
I should have expected it. This is the child who once changed her mind on the way to school Halloween morning and refused to wear the Pocahontas costume I’d spent weeks trying to find. That gave me one hour to scrounge up a pair of black leotards, pin-on tail and pointy kitten ears in time for the school’s costume parade.
The Pocahontas dress went unworn, but the kitten get-up is being recycled this year by my 6-year-old, who--bless her heart--decided months ago to be a black cat this Halloween.
And I will be a witch again, wearing a tattered black skirt, pointy hat and cape. I invested $29.99 in the costume four years ago--when my 12-year-old was young enough to think matching mother-daughter costumes were cute--and I’ve dressed as a witch every Halloween since.
My kids say it suits me perfectly. I say they should all be so easy to please.
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I see them jostling for space in the crowd at the children’s costume display, and I can hear the mother’s voice above the din, a little too bright, not quite masking the frustration showing on her face.
“How about a fairy princess? Isn’t that a pretty outfit?” The daughter resolutely shakes her head, blond curls flying. “No. I wanna be a French Maid.”
How about a cowgirl? No. A bride? No. A bunny rabbit? No!
Dad leans forward and points out his choice: a junior version of the seductive Xena, Warrior Princess. Mom shoots him a look of exasperation and he slinks away, toward the aisle where fake blood and body parts are on display.
“You know, my mother wouldn’t have let me wear something like this when I was your age,” I hear the mom say, as she measures the tiny black skirt against her daughter’s backside. They head for the cash register, the child smiling and holding tight to a pair of black fishnet stockings, while her mother stuffs the tiny skirt and white lace apron back inside its bag.
It’s certainly not Halloween as we recall it--with homemade costumes, bobbing for apples, popcorn balls.
Halloween has become big business these days, thanks in part to the alternate reality we tried to construct when the trick-or-treat tradition seemed to have been vanquished by real-life ghouls, who laced candy with rat poison and stuck needles in apples.
It was hard to tell your kids “Have fun trick or treating!” and “Don’t eat your candy until it’s X-rayed!” in the same breath.
So we retreated to the safety of local malls and parks. And Halloween went from one night of trick or treating to an entire season of parties and carnivals, haunted houses and pumpkin patches, costume contests and candy hunts.
But trick or treating refused to die. Families slowly returned to the streets and the holiday has proved vibrant enough to sustain both sets of traditions.
In truth, we were held hostage mostly by our fears when we let trick or treating wane. Despite rumors, there was never a confirmed case of a child being injured in Los Angeles by tainted candy. Indeed, virtually every report nationwide over the years turned out to be a hoax.
Now, Halloween has become so popular again that almost $2 billion was spent across the country last year on costumes, candy and decorations. And more than half the homes in America put out Halloween decorations--from simple carved pumpkins to elaborate tombstone-and-Dracula lawn displays.
On our block, orange pumpkin lights began going up weeks ago, strung like Christmas lights around eaves and porches. There are illuminated ghosts on front lawns, plastic skeletons hanging from balconies and battery-operated witches that cackle when you pass by.
Gaudy and gruesome, maybe. But also a tribute to the resiliency of a holiday that refused to succumb to fear.
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It’s hard to explain why we held fast to a tradition that runs counter to so much of what we routinely tell our children: Don’t talk to strangers. Candy isn’t good for you. You can’t leave the house dressed like that.
Perhaps we grew tired of letting fear constrict our world. Perhaps our baby boomer refusal to grow up kept us stubbornly attached to this ritual of youth.
Or maybe we realized that Halloween is more than parties and goodies and costume contests; that trick or treating stands for something more substantial than those heavy bags of candy the children lug home.
For after the costumes are put away and the candy eaten, there is a legacy--a Halloween gift, if you will--that remains: the chance to see our neighbors and our neighborhoods, for one night at least, as we’d like them to be.
So thanks be to those goblins and princesses, bobby-soxers and French maids, for allowing us one night a year to come from behind the deadbolts, turn off the burglar alarms and open our doors to one another with smiles on our faces.
* Sandy Banks’ column is published Mondays and Fridays. Her e-mail address is sandy.banks@latimes.com.
