Halloween is just a horrible hoo-ha!

Sunday is here again and it is almost the end of October- that can only mean one thing- right?  No, not 55 shopping days until Christmas (aaagh!)  I’ve already ticked off Canadian Thanksgiving, Diwali was on Wednesday (Happy New Year to the Hindu world) and there’s still breathing space before Melbourne Cup and American Thanksgiving.  I’ve missed one haven’t I?

Of course, Halloween is tomorrow.  Happy Halloween everyone!

Actually, I don’t mean that.  I’m sorry but I grew up in a country where English people still called the British Isle home even when they had never lived there.  No Halloween.  None of this blarney about it being an ancient-Celtic-end-of-harvest-festival-of-the-dead ritual.  It might have started out that way but it is now just a brash commercial exercise AND a chance for the kids to dress up in scary costumes and make themselves ill on lollies.

But England like everywhere else, has taken to Halloween like a vampire takes to blood.  Supermarket chains, department stores and $2 dollar shops rub their hands covered in suppurating sores with glee as yet another opportunity to remove money from unsuspecting customers presents itself.  I bet you there is even a Hallmark greeting card wishing your nearest and dearest the most horribilist of Halloweens.

“Here’s wishing you’re scared witless!!

It’s bad enough that Christmas has been stripped of its dignity and one has to struggle to remind the kids that it’s supposed to be about the birth of baby Jesus and the joy of giving et cetera, et cetera.  Why do we have to succumb to this over the top schlock that is Halloween?

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I will answer those questions you have been begging to ask me.  (See?  I’m a mind reader as well as a writer.)

“How did I respond to the false cheer of Halloween?”

“What did I do when my own little darlings jumped up and down with excitement every time they passed a plastic pumpkin or a ghost mask?”

I capitulated of course.  Pathetic in extremis but I’m always the parent who metes out discipline and sets the rules.  For once, I did not want to be the evil witchy-poo of the day, I wanted a turn at being the Fun Fairy.

But I did it my way.  In a cunning act of deception, I gave my little ghostlings a tiny taste of Halloween without all the painful faux cheeriness of the real thing.  I took them to the library.

I know.  Pure genius.  May plentiful blessing be rained down upon the staff of Warringah Library for the effort and imagination put into their Spooky Halloween Party on Friday night.  (I know Friday- leaving the whole weekend free not to talk about Halloween.)

The kiddies watched a play performed by the local drama school with a cast of zombies, ghosts, witches, draculas and werewolves.  The play was a little hard to follow and I suspect the teenager actors were having so much fun being ghoulish that the play was more a workshop in ad-libbing.  But all credit has to go to the tall guy playing the zombie.  He appeared on stage and jumped into the audience sending an eight year old up the back running screaming for her mother.  (Poor kid but hey, great acting from zombie boy.)

Then there were massive craft stations.  Groups of kiddies rotated through tables so that by the end of the afternoon they had made Monster lolly bags, hats, were covered in tatts and had become dab hands at Toss the Pumpkin.  All this to soundtrack of all those Halloween classics- Monster Mash, The Rocky Horror Show and the theme from The Addams Family and of course, that classic from beyond the grave, Michael Jackson singing Thriller.

The clever librarians even made a game of who could pick up the most mess, awarding four lucky kiddies a book and alleviating themselves of the rather tedious job of removing glitter, glue and crepe paper from the function room of the library.

My little wretches were content to suck on a sickly lollipop all the way home.  My halo was a little shinier even though I knew what they didn’t.  Halloween is on Monday night.  Tee hee!  Happy Halloween everyone.

PS Here’s the link to my favourite seasonal blog.  Not for the squeamish.