Halloween at Midlife. Now that’s scary.
Well, Halloween at my midlife.
You know the hardest thing for me writing about my life these days?
It’s writing about my life these days.
Honestly.
Because I don’t want to think about my kids getting older and things changing and me not being able to have a pumpkin carving contest, making their costumes and controlling my little Halloween family.
Those nuclear family snapshot moments are so few and far between these days.
Or are they?
That’s what has got me stuck. Changing my emotions and idea about what makes Halloween.
Of course, this is not just about Halloween. It’s about everything changing. But the last few days, my thoughts have fixated on Halloween because we have family Halloween rituals.
Such as:
* the Blood sacrifice of one lone squirrel. Preferably the one whose fat self is gorging on my dear beauty cardinal’s sunflower seeds.
* Burning a left whisker plucked off our almost black cat.
No sillies.
Every year. I mean EVERY year, we’ve all carved a pumpkin and held a contest. Now that our oldest is away, there are only four pumpkins but this year, we recruited a child off the streets so we could have five.
I gave my daughter the camera.
This cracks me up. I’ve got my sharpie and the knife. And the horrid stuff on my arm is the aftermath of poison ivy. Only positive is that it’s cut down on the amount of gruesome makeup I’ll have to worry about this Halloween.
Nope. Every year I wonder if they’ve genetically engineered pumpkins without the goop.
I can’t believe he actually ate this.
Okay. Back to my midlife Halloween crisis. Every year I’ve done a face. Like for 20 years. Then I look over at my husband and he’s carving hearts into his gourd. The man — I married 25 years ago — who has always carved a face in his jack-o-lantern carved three hearts.
HEARTS.
Is this guy having an affair or what? Nothing but hearts on his pumpkin?
It’s like the lid for traditional pumpkins I had so carefully counted on every year was obliterated. Blown away.
My goop-eating son was carving something that can only be described as the continent of Africa on his pumpkin.
My daughter impaled hers with toothpicks. It looked familiar.
Hellraiser. I had to google it but that was her pumpkin.
I always wanted creativity to reign in my home — but here. Now. With pumpkins at Halloween?
Was I strong enough?
I stared at my orange gourd with knife in my right hand. A blank canvas. What would I create for this Midlife Halloween? Some smiling melon like always or something new, fabulous and self-aware?
What was my breakthrough pumpkin going to be?
I looked skyward and saw the moon.
And like with most things in my life such as SAT answers and which way to turn on my bike, I went with an instantaneous impression.
The moon. It’s a sign. That’s it.
So I carved a crescent into my pumpkin.
It looked like a no-eyed jack-o-lantern with a crooked smile. Really crooked.
Drat. Stupid.
So I threw some stars in there to take up space.
And that was it.
My daughter’s Hellraiser with my husband’s hearts in background.
I’m carving a moon and stars in my jack-o-lanterns. At least I’m not going to a Halloween party as a zombie geriatric prostitute from the bowels of the Bourbon Street Studio 54.
Nope. That was last year.
This year I’m looking forward mellowing out, gushing over the teensy trick-or-treaters, eating way too many Butterfinger nuggets while lighting our eclectic pumpkins.
And embracing new traditions.
Okay, I so laughed when I typed that. I don’t do new well.
And what say you oh Halloween celebrants?
Way creative! I remember those days well….
I miss those days so much. This was the first year I didn’t put up my scarecrow, the one my now almost 22 year old son picked when he was about 6. Oh, I love Halloween but this year it feels so distant.
I miss Halloween with my son too, but I find that I still deck out the house for the neighborhood kiddos and have fun watching them truck up the driveway. Oh, and there’s the posting of pics of the costumes from Halloween past.
That’s a great word to describe how I feel Cathy — distant. And I’m trying to figure out how to reinvent it.Because it was a big part of fall with younger children I guess. Kind of silly.
A few years ago, I printed out old Halloween photos and put them in frames. Every year I bring them out as part of the decorations. The kids liking seeing them as much or more than I.
We were trying for creative Carol. The execution of creative, not so much. 🙂
This is the first year I am staying home and not going to walk around with my kids or grandkids.
It feels very strange because my husband is working until 9:00 so I am home alone.
I am looking forward to handing out candy to my little neighborhood kids though. I don’t know if I have ever done that…
Love this! It so made me miss the days when my kids were little and Halloween was exciting. This year, my husband and I are celebrating by saving all the good candy to enjoy with a movie after the last trick or treater has knocked on the door – and hoping we don’t run low and have to give it away before then!
I laughed while reading this – and noshing on the leftover Almond Joy candy bars…
I know the feeling, we still have our pumpkin carving kit. It hasn’t been used for years now.. so sad.
I always required my children to give me all the snickers…now there is no one to steal from and buying them for myself seems…too sad. Halloween without trick or treaters is odd. I binged watched how to get away with murder….kind of fits, right?
Definitely. We had so many trick-or-treaters, I eventually just moved to the porch and waited. It was fun.
Almond Joys. Definitely went through a phase in six grade.
That really is kind of sad. That makes me a bit sad. :0
I haven’t done anything for Halloween in years, my kids are grown and one has his family and one is pregnant with twins. I’m sure as my grandchildren get older there will be more excitement. We lived on a farm when my kids were growing up so we always had to go somewhere else to trick or treat. Now we live on a dead end street so still no giving out candy. My big change is Thanksgiving, this will be the first year I haven’t cooked since I got married 23 years ago. It seems so weird to me.