To be completely truthful, I don’t really get Halloween. I don’t get it for a lot of reasons. Mostly I don't get it because of the way I encountered it as a kid. When I was a kid, we kind of celebrated Halloween. I grew up in a family that believed in Jesus and understood that the bad in the world was a questionable celebration. They still believe this way. Because they believed that Halloween’s glorification of goblins and ghouls was in conflict with the lessons they were trying to pass along, we always marked the holiday but in a way that was true to their values. I am sure they, like I, found it hard to just let the day pass. It is everywhere. School. All the stores. The neighbors begin decorating their homes weeks ago. I was first asked about the costume my less than two-year-old son would don for Halloween in August. I thought to myself, I am not sure I will get a shower tomorrow how can I know what outfit I will be wrestling a toddler into in three months.
Even if had been a week before, I would not have had a better idea. In the value system of my Southern, black Christian family, there were only two appropriate costumes if one had to commemorate the day: characters from the bible and important people in black history. In the world of children’s imagination, this is a very limiting costume. In my young mind the uniform for Harriet Tubman was really not that different than Queen Esther; except the latter included something that sparkled. My mother and I have discussed at length how this way of celebrating Halloween stifled my costume imagination, which makes me completely awkward as the un-costumed adult at inevitable parties that must be thrown. She does not really see the tragedy in this failing as human flaws go.
As I begin creating the rituals of family for my son and I, I increasingly appreciate the quirkiness of my introduction to this holiday and what it forces me to remember. I now have the sight of an adult and a parent when I look back. I am grateful for my mother’s and all my relatives’ and church member’s efforts to keep away all the bad of the world from children whose lives were lived on the landscape of poverty and the violence brought on by the crack cocaine epidemic. They were doing their best keep us connected to the good and positive of who we were. For them, and many black people like them, that meant Jesus and pride in your community. I remember objections to blood and bloodsucker, but not ghost. I think ghost got a pass because these people in a small frame house church on Houston’s southeast side were haunted by the very real demons of poverty, racism, substance abuse and violence that could gobble any of us.
In the present day of my adult life, Halloween reminds me that I can’t do everything. Sometimes I need help. So in August when asked about costumes, I acknowledged my limitations. Then I called my sister. She purchased last years costume on a whim and now she is in charge of costumes. I offer suggestions about warmth and practicality. She ignores them and purchases something that usually turns out better than I imagined. She has somehow maintained this aspect of her imagination. Her choice this year has solidified that this will be one of her many roles in his life. I have ceded to her larger sense of fancy and fantasy this duty to bring whimsy and costumed play to a boy whose mother described her costume as an-outfit-that-makes-it-easy-to-run-after-a-toddler. I am just not good at Halloween. Maybe I could practice my way to a decent level by the time it mattered to him. But, I cannot be everything. I can, however, be thoughtful in letting others fill in the gaps and really expand and enrich the life of this boy whose childhood landscape is so different than mine.
I have at times marveled at sharp contrasts in the scenery of our childhood even as the values I impart to him are critically aligned with the love and protection of those faithful who tried to help us have a hallelujah good time in a Halloween context. Maybe next year I will come up with something. Somehow, I doubt it.
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