Memories Are Made of This: October 2014

It seems fitting at this time of year to write about various Halloweens past. I have so many fond memories of Halloween and Fall, both as a kid growing up in Shelby and as a married adult with children.

A particularly memorable Halloween was back in the early 60s. We lived on Woodside Drive, and I know that in those days it was safe to go out trick or treating without your parents. Groups of kids would walk all over the neighborhood and you would pass many groups along the way. It was one of those nights that was anticipated months in advance.
I remember that it was safe to make homemade treats and give them to the neighborhood children. We had one of those wonderful neighbors who made popcorn balls and cookies. Her name was Mrs. Sherer. When you went to her house to trick or treat, you knew that you were not only going to receive one of her delicious homemade treats, you might very likely be invited inside her house to eat them and to have something to drink. I seem to remember her playing the piano too! It is sad that my children never got to experience something like this.
Besides going to Mrs. Sherer's house, we went up and down both sides of the street ringing as many doorbells as possible. It was important to cover a lot of ground to get as many treats as possible!

I guess the year I was considered old enough to tag along with Martha and some of her friends was particularly exciting for me! However, I was younger and didn't know how important the speed was .....faster meant more candy! Martha was always very patient with me, but this particular Halloween she might have been just a little annoyed by my trailing behind. I was always a few paces behind her. Part of what made me slower was because I kept finding candy on the ground. I would bend down and pick it up and add it to my bag. I was small and close to the ground, I guess! When we finally got home, exhausted yet excited to assess our treats, we sat down on the living room floor to dump out our bags. I always like to sort my candy by types. My bag had gotten awfully heavy, and when Martha and I dumped our bags out, I know why mine was so heavy....I had twice as much candy as she did! Martha couldn't understand this since we went to exactly the same houses. After examining her bag, she discovered her bag had a hole in it. I was walking behind her picking up all the candy that slipped through the hole in her bag! Of course, Daddy had to come in and play the diplomat. He convinced me that the right thing to do would be to give Martha some of my candy. I did so....reluctantly...... (but not after sorting and counting it first!)

When I was growing up, I also remember our church, Central Methodist, having a Fall Festival or Halloween carnival. It was complete with games, a hot dog dinner, cake walk and costume contest. We gathered in the Fellowship Hall for this event, and I looked forward to it as much as I did going trick or treating! My favorite game was always Go Fishing. It was so exciting to throw a fishing line (with help from one of the teens from MYF) over a backdrop and pull out a prize clipped to a clothespin on the end of the line! I guess I have always been sort of naive and gullible....I really didn't 'catch on' (no pun intended) until I was old enough to be one of the teens who helped with the games! I was never very good at apple bobbing, but I did love to pick up ducks! The memories of this simpler time of celebration will forever be with me.

As an adult, I truly love making treat bags and giving them out to the neighborhood children on Halloween. I have been doing this for the 38 Halloweens that I have been married! I guess a few times I took the kids out trick or treating, but generally that was Jim's job because I didn't want to miss seeing the witches, goblins, and fairy princesses that graced my doorstep! I love seeing the costumes and I love the excited expressions and 'thank yous' I receive when I drop a little decorated bag filled with candy into the plastic pumpkin, shopping bag, or pillowcase (for those who are very optimistic).

Jim and I went to several grown up Halloween parties where we dressed in costume. We had friends in Raleigh who always hosted a themed party. They were so much fun! One year the theme was Video Games. I was pregnant with Jimmy, so I dyed a bed sheet pink, cut jagged edges and cut out eye holes and went as Pinky the Ghost from Ms. Pac Man (my favorite video game at the time). Being pregnant put some limitations on what costume I could wear. Jim, on the other hand, got very into it. We visited several arcades and looked at video games. We were from the pinball era, and this new rage of video games was not such familiar ground for us. We found a video game called Wizard of War. Jim decided he wanted to go as this character. He painted his face white, sprayed his hair grey (yes, he needed to die it at that time) and got a long black robe. We copied the picture and did his make-up perfectly. He won the costume contest that year! It was a silver-plated champagne bucket engraved and filled with candy corn.

One year Jim and I went with our neighbors to a charity Halloween party. The four of us dressed in black and white. We literally had no part of our bodies that wasn't painted, clothed, sprayed or made up with anything other than black and white. It was pretty cool looking seeing the four of us together and it was really fun to do, but the clean up after the party was not so much fun! Our shower had black paint stains in it for weeks following the party!''

A great part of Halloween is that it is sort of the kick-off to the busy months that ensue....Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. I love those months and all the celebrations. As a crafter, I am always busy with holiday crafts. I went through a time when I would paint plaster figurines for various holidays. Madeline's friends, Grace and Laura, would come over to play with her and would become intrigued watching me paint and cross stitch and all those other things I so love to do! Madeline would get aggravated because she wanted to play with her friends....she saw me crafting all the time! But Laura and Grace wanted to sit down and watch me and ask questions. I find it interesting that they both are creative and crafty young women now.....(and so is Madeline!)
I loved going over to Madeline and Eric's town home the other day and I saw some of these painted figurines, as well as some cute witches that Martha bought for me at a craft show many years ago, decorating Madeline's home! Everything looked so cute and perfect....and familiar. I am so glad that my crafts and my holiday decorations are finding their way into Madeline's home. I know how Mom feels when she comes to my house and sees her things incorporated into my decor. It is so nice to pass things on from generation to generation. I haven't decorated for Halloween in a few years, so I decided to give all of my stuff to Madeline. Now I just decorate for Fall, so it is appropriate for October all the way through to Thanksgiving, which I host at my house.
In addition to making holiday crafts, I used to make holiday sweatshirts and tee shirts for the kids. The boys finally got to a point when they said 'enough!' I know that they had outgrown that, but I still enjoyed making things for Madeline to wear for various holidays. I decorated a little sweatshirt for her one year with ghosts, paint and bows. She was so cute in her Halloween sweatshirt and little tiny blue jeans!

Madeline and the neighborhood friends used to trick or treat in groups. They usually came to our house for group pictures before they headed out. One of my favorite group pictures was when Madeline, Jenna and Grace dressed like babies. They had stuffed animals, pigtails, pajamas, and pacifiers! I think they were middle-schoolers, so they really looked funny as babies!
Madeline dressed as a ballerina one Halloween. That doesn't sound so original, but it was before she got so involved in dance and she ended up owning literally hundreds of dance costumes! Her studio had a sale of used costumes one October and she chose a ballet costume to wear for Halloween. I don't think that we realized in 1995 that our little Halloween ballerina would end up with a BFA in dance from the University of the Arts one day.

One year Madeline and her dance group attended a weekend convention that happened to fall on Halloween. We had a little party for the girls in the hotel ballroom. They dressed in pajamas or costumes for the party and then went trick or treating room to room in the hotel. That was the year I painted mini pumpkins for each of the girls and personalized them with their names.

As a dance teacher, Madeline dresses up in costumes the week of Halloween while she teaches. Usually she raids her dance costume closet to come up with an outfit. I remember the year she took her elaborate costume from a dance she did called Mozart, and ended up turning into a Zombie 18th Century woman! I am sure her students loved that.

I used to be part of a wonderful theater group called P.A.G.E.S. Someone in our group always hosted a Halloween party. Of course, it was a costume party and you can imagine what a bunch of theater people like to do with that! One year Val hosted and the invitation was so cute....it said something like It's a Pajama Party, but Not a Sleepover! We all wore our pajamas. It was really fun! I wore a long flannel nightgown, slippers and carried a teddy bear I borrowed from Madeline.
Another year I went as a nun. It was a joke because everyone in the group was Catholic (we rehearsed and performed at a Catholic church) except me. I thought going as a nun would be comical!
Another year I went as a crazy person with bug eyes, crazy wild hair and handcuffs. Jim went as doctor from the psychiatric ward! Our group had recently done a comedic play set in the psychiatric ward of a hospital.

Jim had some work friends who hosted a Halloween party. I dressed as a "floozy" and Jim dressed as a nerd. It was a fun costume to throw together and seeing my husband with elastic waist shorts pulled up high with a starched white shirt tucked in, a tie, knee socks and of course, with a pocket protector filled with pens was priceless! Jim was never involved with the theater group other than my biggest fan and a supporter of the group, but on Halloween you would think he should be on stage!

As a kid, the weeks leading up to October 31st would be filled with the question: What are you going to be for Halloween? Deciding a costume was the most important decision of the month! I loved helping my own kids with their costumes. Usually they had ideas and minds of their own, with the exception of when they were very little. I remember making many costumes....a little devil for Jimmy, a witch for Madeline, a ghost and a skeleton for Jimmy, and a pirate for Joe. As they got older Joe and Jimmy liked using make up and creating something scary for themselves!
Madeline's first Halloween we dressed her like a little baby clown. She was so adorable! Her brothers dressed as scary monsters. Jimmy was Dracula and Joe was like a skeleton. When they held her between them for a picture, we called it Beauty and the Beasts! The next Halloween left Madeline crying at picture time. She was a beautiful princess complete with a tiara, Jimmy was a football player with a helmet and black make-up under his eyes and Joe was Skeletor...with some awesome make-up that I helped him do! Her brothers looked so scary and they made the little princess cry!

When we lived in Shelby, I remember taking the kids over to Jessie and Bob's so they could see their costumes. They would get such a kick out of this! Then I would take them over to Martha and Bob's so that Martha could give them an extra special treat and take some pictures. Martha particularly liked it the year we went over there and Madeline was dressed as a Wake Forest cheerleader! Martha and Bob had bought her the outfit when they went to one of the WFU football games.

We always loved carving pumpkins each year. I used to do them and sometimes I would also paint the pumpkins. Then Jim took over the carving as the boys got a little bigger. Then of course, the kids wanted to pick their own pumpkins and carve the faces themselves. Jim was always a nervous wreck letting them do this....(and I am talking about Middle Schoolers and High Schoolers!) One year Madeline and Eric had a carving contest themselves. Eric carved his pumpkin to look like Jack from The Nightmare Before Christmas and Madeline carved "Eric" on hers. They were really great!
Our cats always enjoyed the Halloween pumpkins. They would sniff around them and check them out. You know the saying....Curiosity killed the cat! We have always had some curious cats!

I can't believe how many Halloweens have come and gone. Jim and I are truly empty-nesters. I am still making my treat bags for the neighborhood kids, but I doubt we will carve a pumpkin this year. I painted several pumpkins for the church to sell at the Pumpkin Patch. That was a fun thing to do! I sent a Halloween care package to Porter at NYU, knowing that there is a bit of kid even in a college guy!
I guess Jim and I are at a bit of a lull right now, but hopefully one of these days, life will progress and we will be carving pumpkins, making crafts, and choosing costumes with our grand kids! I look forward to that day, but in the meantime, I will relive the Halloweens past of my own childhood and those of my own children.
And memories are made of this.