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Due to a bit of luck (which I'm choosing to believe is of the good kind), I'm home today. I'll admit that one of the many things about relief work that I missed was the occasional guilt-free day off - there are so many things that need to be done, especially around the new house, that I really can't imagine how we'd survive if both of us were working a standard five-day week.
Though I suppose that it's as much the time-consuming hobbies that eat into house-time as much as anything else, if I'm to be completely honest with myself.....
Anyway. The best part about being home today is the chance to be here for trick-or-treaters, honestly. Our old apartment was rather off the beaten path, and our door in particular was in a dark, beshrubbed corner away from the street. I think, in the decade that we lived there, we had about four kids in costume come by.
The new house is big, and bright, with a front door on a major street and a back door on a little dead-end festival of suburban stereotypes. With any luck, I will be blessed with small hordes of moppets in costume, and then I will not be forced to eat all of the Halloween candy myself (a special blend of Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, Heath Bars, and a few other things chosen by polling all of the kids in CVS when I went to buy the stuff).
I love Halloween. Yes, I know it's a festival of junk food; yes, I know it's commercial and silly and that most of the trick-or-treaters aren't adorable moppets in cute little fairy costumes. But.... when I was a kid it was a chance to dress up in costume, show off the costume, talk to strangers, and get candy. I reveled in it, and in the fact that I've always passed for significantly younger than I am, and I went out candy-gathering in costume until I was 16. And as I got older, other parts became more important - the symbolism behind the holiday, to me if not to most of America. The changing of the seasons, the thinning of the barriers between life and death, and a chance for reflection on both.
I see no reason why I can't appreciate both aspects, though. I'm way too old now to go trick-or-treating, and my friends' children are a little too young to truly delight in it - though as soon as they are, I fully intend to present myself at their houses as Crazy Aunt Becky in her weird costume, ready to escort them around the neighborhood. Until then, though, I'll sit here this afternoon and evening with the porch lights on and a big bowl of candy, thinking my own Halloween thoughts and waiting for the kids to show up....
Though I suppose that it's as much the time-consuming hobbies that eat into house-time as much as anything else, if I'm to be completely honest with myself.....
Anyway. The best part about being home today is the chance to be here for trick-or-treaters, honestly. Our old apartment was rather off the beaten path, and our door in particular was in a dark, beshrubbed corner away from the street. I think, in the decade that we lived there, we had about four kids in costume come by.
The new house is big, and bright, with a front door on a major street and a back door on a little dead-end festival of suburban stereotypes. With any luck, I will be blessed with small hordes of moppets in costume, and then I will not be forced to eat all of the Halloween candy myself (a special blend of Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, Heath Bars, and a few other things chosen by polling all of the kids in CVS when I went to buy the stuff).
I love Halloween. Yes, I know it's a festival of junk food; yes, I know it's commercial and silly and that most of the trick-or-treaters aren't adorable moppets in cute little fairy costumes. But.... when I was a kid it was a chance to dress up in costume, show off the costume, talk to strangers, and get candy. I reveled in it, and in the fact that I've always passed for significantly younger than I am, and I went out candy-gathering in costume until I was 16. And as I got older, other parts became more important - the symbolism behind the holiday, to me if not to most of America. The changing of the seasons, the thinning of the barriers between life and death, and a chance for reflection on both.
I see no reason why I can't appreciate both aspects, though. I'm way too old now to go trick-or-treating, and my friends' children are a little too young to truly delight in it - though as soon as they are, I fully intend to present myself at their houses as Crazy Aunt Becky in her weird costume, ready to escort them around the neighborhood. Until then, though, I'll sit here this afternoon and evening with the porch lights on and a big bowl of candy, thinking my own Halloween thoughts and waiting for the kids to show up....
