Halloween Happiness

October 31, 2008

Our Halloween celebration began a week ago at the annual Williams Halloween bash. The theme was pirates, and oh, what a yummy morsel of piratey goodness my husband was.

The party began at 8:00 p.m. Food aplenty, rampant libations, fun galore.

Here's a picture of me before the whimsical journey toward inebriation:

Probably good that there's no "after" picture.

So much fun to see everyone in costume. Not sure if the kids or the adults had more fun with it. Daniel was beset by a band of ruthless young rogues, but he defended himself with finesse.

Ah...the pirate's life for him...

My childhood memories of Halloween are filled with sensory images of the cheap plastic costumes we used to buy in boxes lined up at KMart, a light chill in the wind as we trotted through our Pinellas County neighborhood in Florida, turning over my orange plastic jack o' lantern bucket on the kitchen table and watching the colorfully wrapped candy rain out, eating a raw turnip during a bizarre relay race during a church Fall Fest the first year we were no longer allowed to celebrate Halloween because of its so-called "evil" nature.

For a long time, I didn't celebrate Halloween at all. In fact, like my mother, I hated the holiday for a long time, probably because deep, deep down in my little girl's imagination, I'd always loved it and resented having the magic of it taken away from me.

Years later, when I left the Christian religion and explored Wicca, I reclaimed Halloween for all its fun and whimsy, but also for the sacredness of remembering the ancestors, honoring those who have passed. At my parents' property in East Texas, we celebrated Samhain, the origin of Halloween, with a bonfire. We roasted marshmallows and made s'mores sometimes. We sang "Circle of Life" and remembered the loved ones we had lost. We welcomed the turning of the Wheel of the Year.

I miss those bonfires.

While I am caught up this year in celebrating Halloween the more recently traditional way, with costumes and parties and trick-or-treating with our friends and their kids tonight, I am also remembering on this sacred day those I have lost with candles lit in honor of their lives and the many lives they touched during their time on this planet.

I wish all of you a fun, festive, delightful, safe, and sacred Halloween.