I like Halloween. I like getting the kids all dressed up in silly costumes. I like going out trick-or-treating and seeing the neighborhood decorated and kids prancing around the block. I’ve always liked it. I remember wearing plastic costumes with hard plastic masks held together by an elastic band. We walked around our small town with a pillowcase asking for candy and trying to guess who my friends were underneath their plastic masks.
I loved it.
Taryn and John indulged my lack of craft skills for years, faithfully wearing my lame attempts at cool costumes. Once I dressed him as peas and her as carrots. (Get It?) Once they were Adam & Eve, complete with a fake apple tied around her wrist. They won the contest at the mall that year. Eventually they wanted to buy costumes at the store, like the normal kids. I got them to be Peter Pan & Tinkerbell and Power Rangers before they decided they did not need to be dressed as a pair.
Reese and Jackson never suffered the indignity of my homemade costumes. Last year, at only age 5, I stopped insisting they even match.
That’s what having four kids does to you. You give up faster.
Still, I love Halloween. It’s all about fun for me. Costumes, candy, sneaking all the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Sweet Tarts out of their bags after they go to bed. Our non-traditional-to-the-point-of-almost-non-religious church has a slightly different take on Halloween. Each year, around this time they use the Sunday service as a time for remembrance of the people we’ve lost. It’s not all sad, but there are always a few tears. I’m ok with it.
I’m ok with most things the church does.
However, after the service Reese showed me a stick he had decorated with strips of fabric. He told me they had talked about remembering people who had died in their class that morning. Reese and Jackson aren’t very aware of the whole life and death thing yet. No one close to us has died recently, so we’ve not had to discuss it. But, I’m a slacker parent so I’m ok with someone else taking on that task.
Reese didn’t get the point though.
He told me they had to tie a piece of fabric on the stick and say the name of someone who had died.
He said, “I told them our cat died. I know we just gave her away. But that was a long time ago so she’s probably dead now, so it’s ok.”
I think we’re going to need to revisit this topic. I wonder if those Sunday school teachers make house calls.
I remember the Adam and Eve costumes! They were so cute!!
Seriously, that kid is brilliant. Thinking outside the box, not worried that he may be a pathological liar at all. Maybe the cat IS dead by now. Meanwhile my Uncle Grampa made Mom stop by his place yesterday to pick up Gramma before they went out to lunch. She kept saying, “Dad, she’s dead remember?” “I know, I just can’t find her.” I’ll take Reese.
I was hoping for old John and Taryn pictures from those past years. Did they refuse to let you post them? But the boys sure are cuties!
Reese has a point. There are a lot of people who are dead – to me. If I tied a fabric around a stick for all those I buried (into the past), it’d be a Super-plus tampon.
Reese found a way to participate, and justify his craft. I think he did a remarkable job. Of course, I might be a little prejudiced!! I would love to see pics of the Twins and twinkies in costumes from days past
Actually celebrating the dead is not such a weird custom. Hispanic cultures celebrate Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) on Nov 1. (ironically coincides with the American Halloween). Families get together and pray for loved ones who have died. It’s a national holiday, banks close and everything. People dress up and paint their faces like skulls in order to honor the dead, but they make it an art. Ornate make-up, flowers in the hair, they make it beautiful. http://meagan-marie.deviantart.com/art/Dia-de-los-Muertos-3-185680984
Catholics celebrate All. Souls Day on Nov. 1st. It id aday of prayer and reflection
OMG! What a complex yet brilliant mind he has! Seriously! Who would think like that but Reese???
Are you inclined to check whether if that cat is still alive or not? You know, just to see if he was right
[...] on October 31, 2012 | by Bridget | No Comments After my post about Reese’s Halloween I got a few requests to see my costume-making attempts. It was a brief period, a decade ago, I lost [...]
My little ones were Peter Pan and Tinker Bell this year. It seems Tinker Bell is a pretty popular choice for toddler girls.