If you walked down my street ten years ago, a few days after Halloween, you would be greeted by spooky-themed carnage: moulding pumpkins, tattered paper skeletons and littered sweet wrappers. It was, almost ironically, a Halloween ghost town. A few days prior, the streets were filled with DIY ghosts, sugar-fuelled witches and laughter. The quiet cul-de-sac was lit up with can- delight glinting off sparkly costumes. Huddles of parents chatted as children extorted their neighbours for the sweets which would become the main point of familial contention over the coming weeks.
Eventually, the children went to bed with smudged face pain and stomachs full of E numbers. Happy. However, like those mould- ing pumpkins, my experience of Halloween has been somewhat ravaged with the effects of time. As a small child, my house was the hub of festivities when the spooky season approached. Weeks of planning went into the night: papier mâché decorations, hand-sewn costumes, apples to be bobbed. The community came out in its masses to celebrate the one holiday that brought us all together. My cyclical alternation between cat and witch costume sufficed to help me garner all the sweets I could carry as I went around my neighbours spouting a joke for which I had spent the previous week trawling through tattered joke books. It is a Scottish tradition to say a joke to earn your ‘treat’ so this was a vital part of proceedings and “What is brown and sticky? A stick” was a family favourite. In a rare display of un-Britishness, we would voluntarily interact with the people we lived around. Elderly neighbours would meet the kids whose screams kept them from their afternoon naps and those who were more reclusive would be, if willing, welcomed into the neighbourhood circle. Under the guise of spreading Halloween fever, we were actually spreading neighbourly values and friendship. Of course, those who did not want to participate were respected as were encouraged only to approach houses with decorations. I am under no illusions that the appearance of a ghost is always unwelcome to some people, even if it is just an eight-year-old under a bedsheet.
My memory of these years may sound hyperbolic, and I will admit, at the time, I was more focussed on the food and that one neighbour who gave out actual money (a whole 20p each!) than the social barriers being broken down, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. As all the children in our street bobbed for apples in my living room, we shared more than a basin. Our common childhood experience of Halloween is something we will always treasure. It was never high-budget or flashy, but it’s amazing how far doughnuts on a string can go to entertain a village’s children. I accept that memories are embellished over time, and I don’t deny that there were Halloween mishaps, but having your face painted as a spider witch instead of a regular one is not exactly catastrophic. As Halloween rolled around every year, we dusted the cobwebs off the faux-cobwebs and prepared for one of our favourite nights of the year. However, just as carved pumpkins cannot last for- ever, neither could this wonderfully juvenile experience.
As we entered our later teenage years, we no longer wanted our parents accompany us around our block as house parties beckoned. Influenced by swathes of Halloween parties in movies (Mean Girls I’m looking at you) the aim was now to look striking, not sinister. Witches cloaks were replaced with short skirts and fake blood with high heels—although, admittedly, the way I staggered in them was almost zombie-like. Outfits were planned for weeks, not for realism but for the opportunity to strategically smuggle vodka past our parents. As a non-drinker at that time, I stood aside awkwardly as Aladdin flirted with Cher from Clueless and the entire cast of Anchorman vomited in the middle of the dance- floor.
Admittedly, this new-found freedom was exciting, but the hyperactivity from too much sugar was easier to sleep on than the nausea from too much off-brand gin. My meticulously planned costumes would last an hour at most before someone was sick on them or the party was shut down. I would return home, exhausted and disappointed, to my parents who would tell me of all the trick-or-treaters who had come to our door and a small part of me wished I could have joined them instead. One of my favourite days of the year had been marred by adolescence and insolence. However, in the depths of my heart, a lit pump- kin still flickers. Those memories of traipsing the streets surrounded by friends and neighbours, weighed down by bags of chocolate will always prevail in my mind and my love of Halloween endures. I am in no way demonising (excuse the pun) alcohol for its involvement in these years. We were naïve and thought we were untouchable, which some found to be untrue the hard way through the intervention of a stomach pump, but I’m taking back control of my Halloween. This year I am going to lay on the sweets, decorations, and judgement if people don’t make an effort. Yes, there will probably be drink involved (sorry, mum) but I assure you, if someone is sick on my decorations then there will be no need for fake blood.
