Sometime in my recent memory, I have misplaced the year that Halloween ceased from being a single night of confectionary fun for the 10 and under set to becoming an entire endless season of macabre entertaining for the entire global population.

I like Halloween as much as the next mother who asks their children to take candy from strangers and eat Twizzler’s for breakfast for the next month before I throw away a melting sack of sticky leftover crud next Easter, but I’ve found that it sure is a lot of work for we parents suddenly.

Take today for instance.

We are still a week away from October 31st, but yet already we have attended 6 parties, a hayride, an amusement park horror night, a monster mash breakfast, a prayer service dedicated to victims of “The Saw” movies, and a vampire blood drive. Today, we have to prepare for a school Trick or Treat event and the first middle school costume dance.

If you attempt the math for our family with 4 little ghouls, that equals 164 costume changes, 806 bite size Snickers, 4 inches of hair cut out from stray suckers and gum, and $17,000. If that’s not scary, I don’t know what is.

I suppose my October workload wouldn’t be so overwhelming if the kids would pick one costume and wear it to every event we attend. But no. I should dress them all as a box of Eggos because they waffle on their Halloween wardrobe so often.

The decorating has become a bit much as well. When I was a kid, we’d stick a candle in a Jack O’ Lantern and call it a night. Today, I’m sticking faux tombstones out in the front yard wondering why for this month, death is yard kitsch. Since we haven’t taken our Christmas lights down from last year, I’m just having my husband switch out the bulbs to orange and purple.

As I am sewing, cooking, preparing, packing, loading, driving, gathering, searching for that other Cinderella shoe, shopping, cajoling, pleading, bribing, crying, figuring out how to make Spongebob out of pipe cleaners, hosting, decorating, and photographing; my kids are doing their part to, ah…help. The baby is fussing in her chicken costume that raises her core body temperature 10 degrees. The toddler is applying her own lipstick. And eyestick. And cheekstick. And armstick. And hairstick. My second grader is chiseling away at his tooth enamel so the sugar can form instantaneously into cavities. And my middle schooler has a ruler calculating just how much physical space is needed for him and his dance partner to allow the requisite, “enough room for the Holy Spirit to fit in between.”

I can’t help but wonder if other holidays will eventually be elevated in such universal social importance. Will we someday have Flag Day celebrations with classroom parties and themed Jell-O molds? Will the banks and post offices be closed on Arbor Day? Will my grandchildren be placing plastic guillotines in their yards for Bastille Day? I suppose only time will tell.

At least this holiday has a finite end. All Saints Day arrives promptly on November 1st, and that’s a holiday I can celebrate with maternal joy. Because as I am scraping up the rotten pumpkin from the porch, throwing away the dozens of Mary Jane candy wrappers that scatter lawn, and finally cooking dinners that don’t resemble dismembered body parts; I look up to heaven and thank God Halloween is over.

©2007 Tracey Henry

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