So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better
for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. (Ecclesiastes 8:15)
My hairdresser showed me a picture of her children in Halloween costumes. That was all it took for me to be swept back in time. I was suddenly sitting at the kitchen table in my friend's house. We had just come back from trick or treating and we were looking through big bags of candy.
Not everyone celebrates Halloween. I know of a boy who said he wasn't allowed to attend any Halloween activities because his mother thought Halloween was "the devil's holiday". However, I always learned more from it about good than evil. It was a time not just for having lots of fun, but for learning new things about myself and observing people show their love for me in new ways.
Best Costume
My first memory of Halloween was my kindergarten class parading around outside the school in costumes. I was dressed as a bride. My bridal gown was actually a white tutu from my mother's collection of dance materials. It came down almost to the pavement. I was also wearing a bridal veil. It was hard to move around in the dress and veil. I kept stepping on the hem of the dress as we walked. The thing that stood out most for me about that event, though, was hearing my father yelling my name so I would look at him as he ran around taking pictures "Hey, Doroth! Doroth! Look here!". There are few times that I ever saw him move so quickly or act so excited. When we looked later at the pictures he took, Mom laughed, pointing out that in every picture there was a little boy with red hair who was following closely behind me. She said it was clear that that little boy liked me.
Most of my Halloween costumes were made by Mom, and I often won awards for the costumes she made. When I was about nine or ten she dressed me up as an Indian woman with a baby attached to her. When I was a little younger, she made a Raggedy Ann costume for me that won an award for being "the cutest." I remember her hand sewing an apron that was part of that costume. By seventh grade, I was designing the costumes myself. When looking at a very large box that belonged to Grandmom Myers, I suddenly got the idea to use that box to make a Halloween costume. The box would be transformed into a trash can. My feet would come out of the bottom and my head would come out of the top, so I would look like a person in a trash can. I think I even had a fake lid on my head. Grandmom had no problem letting me use the box. She smiled when I told her what I had in mind to do with it and Grandmom added something to it. When I went over to her house to get the box, I was surprised to see that she had sprayed the box gray to make it look more like a trash can. I wore my trash can outfit to the middle school Halloween dance and won an award for having the most original costume!
Mysterious Ways
One of my favorite movies is "Apollo 13" (1995), about a group of men who worked together to bring three astronauts home after an accident in outer space. One of scenes that I find inspirational shows all the men sitting around a table looking at a bunch of items on the table that were things the men had with them up in the space ship. Their challenge was to find ways to use those items to achieve the goals necessary to get the men home. The leader of the group said, "I don't care what anything was designed to do. I care about what it CAN do." When I watch that scene, I think about how much we as people are like those items on the table. We are all instruments of God and it can be quite interesting to watch the way in which he chooses to use us.
The Halloween season in 1974 was a particularly memorable one because my family moved from Mansfield to New Ringgold in the middle of it. I was in second grade at the time. At the beginning of the month of October I was in one school, and by the end of the month I was in another school. In my Mansfield school, my class made paper witches. I asked my teacher, who I will call Mrs. Moyer, if we could take our witches home. She said, "Oh no, you may not take them home. I want to hang them on the wall of the classroom!" That presented a problem. She would keep the witches on the classroom wall until the end of the month and then take them down to give back to the students. However, I was moving the next week. I would be long gone by the time she took the witches down and I would never get mine back. I looked down at that witch and felt so bad for her. She would be forever separated from her mother. I couldn't let that happen. I wanted to take her with me to my new house. I did something then that was not typical for me. I generally followed the rules and did what I was told, but not that day. I hid the witch on the inside of my jacket as I left for the day, walking out of the school with her. Mrs. Moyer didn't even notice that my witch was missing. Mom understood why I did what I did and even seemed to marvel at the ingenuity of it. So did I. I discovered something new about myself that day and learned not to underestimate what I was capable of.
So a week or two later I transferred to a new school in a more rural area. The school was smaller and not as modern. I was never good at making new friends. As the new kid on the block, I kept to myself and sat in the back of the class, very quiet and passive. I did the academic work but did not interact much with the other children. In my other schools, Halloween had been observed in a special way. The students all came to school in Halloween costumes and there were parties and other special events. I sat with great anticipation, waiting for my new teacher, who I will call Mrs. Miller, to talk about such an event for the new class, but she never did. It became clear that no such event was planned for this new class. Halloween was just going to be like any other day in the school year.
That changed when I walked up to Mrs. Miller one day. Sometimes awkward with other children, I had no trouble talking to adults. Growing up as the only child in a house full of adults, I had become quite confident in my ability to persuade them. I told Mrs. Miller about the festivities in my other school, and asked if we could have such an event there. She listened to me with interest, and said she would give it some thought. Then she proposed the idea to the class who willingly agreed to it.
Mrs. Miller's only concern was about the students who might not have a Halloween costume to wear. She was probably worried that there might be some children in the class whose parents couldn't afford one. She then proposed something that was much easier to find back then - a large brown paper bag. There was a time when that was all that the stores had. The ones that you got at the grocery store were big enough to put over a child's head and you didn't have to worry about smothering them with it. The bottom of the bag would rest on their shoulders. Mrs. Miller showed them how to make a mask out of it, cutting out holes for their eyes with a pair of scissors. So on Halloween most of the second grade students came to school in costumes, and the few who didn't have costumes wore paper bag masks that were creatively decorated. One little girl attached hair ribbons to her bag. We paraded around in the costumes and masks. I don't remember what else we did. I just know that everyone had lots of fun.
I look back now and marvel at how God used the most quiet kid in the class to provide a treat for the rest of the children that they wouldn't otherwise have had. It was an early lesson about culture. People from other places sometimes had different experiences that they could share with others who enjoyed them, too. Those who received new ideas from them could add their own thoughts and come up with something slightly different than the original thing.
I still draw inspiration from my childhood Halloween memories today. I am guided by the lessons I learned from them - about the love of parents and grandparents, caring teachers, the mysterious ways of a wise God, and the complex mix of qualities that we all have within us. I learned about the power of the imagination and how little things can bring great happiness.
"And I'll remember the love that you gave me....now that I'm standing on my own."
Lyrics from the song "I'll Remember" by Madonna (1994)
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