The Prince George Citizen

We still live in polite society

- MEGAN KUKLIS

It is early in the morning, the day after Halloween and my kids are still sleeping off their Halloween hangover. If you know anything about my household, you would understand how unusual it is for me to be awake, showered, dressed, breakfast eaten, coffee-in-hand and alone. The stars and planets have aligned and I am sitting on the couch, typing away, sipping coffee that is too hot; no one is complainin­g, needing toast or cereal or fighting with their sibling. I feel uncomforta­ble with the silence and my productivi­ty.

Our Halloween was easy. Both of the kids wanted to wear the same costume as last year (Darth Vader and a Scary Ghost) and they resisted all of my attempts at a new costume.

We met my cousins at my mom’s house, as we do every year, because we are spread out throughout the city and there is excellent trick-or-treating in my mom’s neighbourh­ood in the Hart.

My husband and my cousins tease me every year calling me the Halloween Nazi although I do not find my attitude quite as funny as they do.

Just because I think that the children need to learn to not go traipsing through people’s lawns and should say “thank you” after they have received candy, does not mean that I am overly militant.

This is what I was insisting, in between yelling at the kids about inefficien­t trickor-treating and reminding the big kids to wait for the littles. I ignored my husband who was mimicking what I said in a thick German accent.

When I mentioned to the other parents that I hated it when the kids cut through people’s lawns, my cousin (who is used to me and my ridiculous­ness) very calmly said that it was likely okay that the kids were running around and to be expected on Halloween.

That was when I remembered why I cared about the lawns. When I was a young girl trick-or-treating in my neighbourh­ood, an elderly man yelled at me and my friend for cutting through his lawn. He was mean and it scared us. I apparently have internaliz­ed a fear of being yelled at again and now am instilling the same fear in my children. Except, I don’t think they could even hear my protests about cutting through people’s yards over the sugar rush to their wee heads and the dull roar of adrenalin of being allowed to be out after dark, running without fear and, talking to and taking candy from strangers.

Halloween must be a little confusing because it is the one day in the year that we collective­ly throw out all of the rules of polite society.

Something wonderful happened on Halloween that made me feel optimistic about the kindness of future generation­s. Because it was a relatively mild night, there were more Halloween-friendly houses (pumpkins, screen doors braced open and spooky decoration­s) that did not have anyone home.

Presumably, the people were out trick-or-treating with their own kids or grandkids and did not have anyone to hand out candy.

Instead, many of the houses left their candy in large bowls on their porches. Any time I see a bowl, I always assume it will be empty because people are greedy but house after house had their bowls out and still half-full of candy.

I watched our kids run up to the house, take one piece of candy and run to the next house. The thought of taking the whole bowl of candy or more than one piece did not even occur to them.

Halloween rules applied but they were all still polite and respectful – even without me yelling reminders at them.

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