I decorated for Halloween for the first time in years. I realized as I was hanging strands of purple and orange lights that this act of going all out on something unnecessary was giving me life. In the past, I’d mainly decorated in excess when there was a party to be had or it had some sort of purpose. Today, my house looks like it came from the set of Transylvania and there’s no party or event on the agenda. I wasn’t even planning on being here for trick or treaters! I can’t say that I pulled out all of these ghouls and goblins because of neighborly peer pressure either. No one else on my street even had a pumpkin out until recently! 

It could be that my excitement comes from having two kiddos present this year who are excited about my tubs and tubs of spooky decor. There’s a little girl who is especially excited about doing this decorating together. Maybe she sparked my newfound motivation. 

As I’m decorating and she’s spilling push pins all over the floor, I am reminded of decorating for Halloween with my mom. She always went above and beyond for seasonal decor and for some reason, Halloween was especially fun at my house. My mom loved her trick or treaters. I think she loved having everyone stop by and seeing all of the neighborhood kids in their cute costumes. She always had a stash of goodies for the big kids too. For the ones who started out as trick or treaters themselves, who now bring their own babies, dressed as little superheroes and princesses. We only saw some of these people once a year, on Halloween night. They seldom missed a stop at our house though. Even as a teenager, I remember feeling proud to be one of the houses that you knew would always be participating. Maybe it’s the nostalgia of those days that made decorating so fun this year.  

I can remember the weeks leading up to Halloween night being spent putting finishing touches on decor and filling treat bags with candy. I truly didn’t realize that most people just filled a bowl of candy and handed out a few pieces to each visitor. We bought little Halloween-themed bags and spent an entire night filling them with goodies. We thoughtfully bought both chocolate and non-chocolate options, and each bag had an exact number of each. We made an assembly line with piles of candy. If one bag got a Twix, the other got a Snickers. If one back got a sucker and a box of Nerds, the other got a similar arrangement. Knowing now that these well-arranged little bags were simply dumped later with no regard to the time spent assembling them, is a tad disappointing. As I think about planning for trick-or-treaters this year, I fight the urge to make treat bags. 

I know that we’ve moved to a time of fall carnivals and trunk or treats at church instead of the door to door begging for candy that I grew up on, and I feel sort of sad about it. In my youth, it was a full on community event. There were far more houses with their porch lights on than off, signaling to parents that they were participating with treats. Families tossed hay bales on top of trailers typically used for hauling farm equipment, and pulled as many kids as possible through our little, rural community. That’s called a hayride, if you’ve never heard of such. Kids hopped off and bombarded houses 15-20 at a time, often leaving candy buckets empty and homeowners confused as to who all those kids were. There aren’t even that many kids in this small town! 

Every now and then, there was that teenager who threw on a mask at the last minute, hoping to score some candy to sneak into Ms. Darnell’s math class the next day. My mom didn’t care for this trickery. They were met with a disapproving look and a few scraps of candy. It was those extra sweet, adorable kids that got the best bags, filled with the good stuff. The “good stuff” can be identified as my own personal favorites. A lot of thought went into this, and I spent way more time than necessary choosing which kids got which bags. I never said this was fair. 

No matter the reason, I am so happy to have decorated this year. Plugging in those haphazardly strung lights at the end of a hard day, has brought me so much joy this month. When I look back on this October, I’ll forever remember going all out on this little temporary house with Olivia. It reminds me of that Trace Adkins song that says, “she thinks we’re just fishing.” In my case, she thinks we’re just hanging skeletons.