Nothing scary here in celebrating seasons
‘Will you show us your decorations?” Andrew asked during our last couple of FaceTime calls. What ensued was a travelogue through the house, video of one room after the next featuring ghouls, goblins and glass jars filled with Halloween goodies.
Conversation with our grandkids this time of year swirls around Halloween decorations. Nothing’s better than fall and Halloween decorations are important to a 5-yearold, a 3-year-old and their grandmother for that matter.
Simple, isn’t it. Imagine something so simple that gives this much pleasure. We know this but we forget this.
Nothing mutes the delight in Halloween, in transforming a home from one season to the next — Halloween is the tip of the seasonal iceberg, followed by Thanksgiving, Christmas, Mardi Gras, Easter and the Fourth of July, courtesy in this house of Sue.
The boxes with the wreaths, skeletons, ceramic pumpkins, strings of lights and holiday plates come from somewhere high up in closets and tucked away in cupboards, and out spring the ageless decorations that soon transform a house.
Rebirth comes in many forms: spiritual, travel, revisiting the ocean and celebrating holidays with children again.
“Again” because although there is joy passing through the holidays and seasons with your own children, it is tempered by fatigue, responsibility and the fantastic speed at which life happens regardless of our efforts to slow it down.
While the parents absorb most of the heavy lifting — they are the front-line workers of sorts,
the first responders — grandparents can float above the work, the worry and turbulence and enjoy the view from 40,000 feet. The big picture-picture constructed of snapshots and conversations overheard but not discarded.
“Will you show me your decorations again?”
When Andrew visited last year in early December, he helped us choose a Christmas tree, then helped decorate it and the house. We gave him extra ornaments to arrange in the window of his bedroom. Decorate he did and they proved so important to him, we gave him a box to take home so he could do the same in his own room.
His little sister, Lillian, was equally enthusiastic but not quite as organized.
“Will you show me the decorations?” and so during the most recent call Sue walked around the
house as if she were a docent and leading a museum tour for some very important guests.
The string of golden leaves on the sideboard, the gnarled pumpkins on the porch, the scary witches, goblins, the bowl of Halloween M&M’s near the dining room table and the clear pumpkin jar filled to the top with pumpkin-shaped candies. “Would you like to see ours?” Yes, we would. We’d like to see them almost as much as you’d like to show them. Hold on to your hats because as the guide becomes more excited, he swings the phone around in an effort to capture Halloween in all its glory, now upside down.
We are impressed, thrilled and scared, especially scared because there is nothing better than Halloween-scared for a 5-year-old.
Then Lillian asks, “Can you read us some Halloween stories?”
Yes, we can. Yes, we do. We can read them twice if you’d like and get a jump on Christmas.
We revisit the Halloween classics
— “Pumpkin Moonshine,” “Five Little Pumpkins,” “It’s Halloween,” “Where’s the Halloween Treat?”
Then they ask, “Would you like us to read you some stories?”
Yes, and it’s not too early to talk about Easter either.
“Can I see the decorations one more time?”
Yes, and if you want to skip dinner, bath and bedtime, we’ll pull a Halloween all-nighter.
We say goodbye. We don’t want to, but we do. They don’t want to but they do, too.
Seasons matter. Celebrating them does, too. Ritual makes renewal possible. Halloween aside, there is nothing scary about that.