Halloween Crazy

Sorry anti-Halloween folks – I’ve jumped the fence.

After years of teetering on the edge, ill at ease with the thought of kids invading peoples’ privacy by knocking on doors and demanding lollies, I’ve now been converted.

There was the year I allowed my children to go trick or treating but handing out lollies, instead of taking, there were the years they dressed up and handed them out at our door, then there were those years I locked all the doors and hid. The oldest has been coming home from school for the last two weeks reporting the latest Halloween plan plotted between himself and his mates and I’ve only been half-listening, hoping the whole thing would just go away. 

But, in retrospect, as New Zealanders catch onto the American tradition, so long as the non-believers are respected, and the children are polite and well-mannered, I’ve realised I’ve got to stop being a party pooper and just let them have fun.

And this year it was fun, with a fair amount of crazy thrown in.

It all started as soon as the kids got home from school. They raced downstairs to don their costumes and, not being able to wait until a more suitable hour, charged up the drive to spy on other trick or treaters. That was when the menacing boom of thunder sounded and the skies opened up to pelt all and sundry with large hailstones.

They tore back indoors as silver bullets ricocheted around the yard and the disappointment of being weather-bombed out of their Halloween fun, soon gave way to awe. Before our eyes, the front and back yards were transformed into a white, winter wonderland, the likes of which I’ve never before seen in Northland. 

Before long we were all out in it, summer clothes and all, scooping up armfuls of the 1ft deep ‘snow’. They threw it, they skidded in it, they brought cupfuls inside to eat and the housework I had spent half the day doing earlier was undone just like that with water, mud and (later) candy crumbs. Eventually it stopped and the sun popped back out, thereby declaring the trick or treating back on.

It was all go as two of Master Ten’s costumed mates got dropped off at ours before they all set off to pick up a fourth friend to do the rounds of the suburb.

Meanwhile, the younger ones were chaffing at the bit to get going so were escorted around the still ‘snow’-laden footpaths closer to home, while I opted to stay back to clean up the carnage and hand out the bloodshot eyeball lollies to the trick or treaters. When they all finally returned, weighed down with loot, they sat on the floor and had a debrief while comparing and playing swapsies with their stash.

The younger ones had passed a teacher with her kids wearing a Donald Trump shirt and Master Eight had skidded in the snow, up-ending himself and his bucket of lollies all over the footpath.

According to his big brother, whose area covered a sub-division with mostly elderly, about 80 per cent played the game, with one opting to ‘trick’ instead by chasing them, barking, back down the path with some toy dogs, much to the boys’ hilarity. Another proclaimed to be a witch herself and declared that that was what 40 years as a teacher had done to her. Others asked what their tricks were, to which the boys told jokes.

“There were some weirdos mum – it was so much fun!” he declared.

Judging by their reports, it would seem that gone are the days where the elderly are startled by the invasive intrusion of frightening-looking children knocking at their door after-hours and, for the most part, they seemed to be embracing it.

And as the vestiges of snow melted away outside and I tucked in the happy but knackered children, (having ensured they brushed their teeth extra well), I decided that, next year, I will too.