Halloween: Then And Now

All Hallows Eve, one of my 3 favourite days of the year.  A chance to let the inner child out to play.  I saw this floating around on Facebook and it took me back to prowling the neighbourhood on Halloween Night...


COSTUMES:

• THEN: The night before Halloween, your tired Mom takes you into K-mart, where you look through the picked-over plastic masks with matching costumes. You clutch your costume to your chest on the way home as you slide around on the bench seat without a seatbelt.  She then puts four frozen Salisbury steak TV dinners in the oven
• NOW: Three months before Halloween, your Mom starts researching politically correct costumes and narrows it down to three choices. She then spends three days on Pinterest planning the components of the non-genetically-modified corn costume. Afterwards, she spends $279 at the local craft store to purchase non-allergenic material and locally made glue, only exchanging the green material twice to get the exact shade for the corn husk. She has you model the finished product with a series of 17 photos so that she can blog about the steps to making it. Then, she posts it to Pinterest and Instagrams the photos.

HALLOWEEN NIGHT:

• THEN: You bust through the door from school and run straight to your costume, pulling it on over your school clothes. You try the mask on, knowing its tiny breathing hole will in no way facilitate oxygen exchange while you run around like a crazy person during trick-or-treating. The mask eyes never fit perfectly, so vision is limited.  You run around in your costume in the yard, getting sweaty, until it's time to go right at the moment it starts getting dark outside.
• NOW: You come home from school ato some dedicated quiet time in your room reading a book or drawing so that you don't get over-stimulated. Your Mom double-checks the neighbourhood association's newsletter to ensure that she's right about the designated trick-or-treating hours of 6:37 p.m. to 8:01 p.m. One hour before the designated neighborhood time slot, your mom tells you to pee, wash your face and brush your teeth. You open the package of new organic thermal underwear that perfectly matches your costume. Your Mom gently helps you into your costume and carefully paints your face with dye-free, organic tint. Your Mom takes two selfies of you and her and posts them on Facebook with a countdown clock. She then positions you into 12 different poses in front of the recycled farm background that she made during her lunch hour earlier that day. She posts those pictures to Instagram.

TRICK OR TREATING:

• THEN: As the street lights click on, your Mom rips two pillowcases off of the pillows and hands one to you and one to your brother to put the candy in. You run down the sidewalk, your mom waving from the front door as you meet up with your friends from the neighbourhood and run like maniacs from door to door until your Mom yells for you or the scary widow lady tells you it's time to go home. You drag your full pillowcase of candy along the road and into the house. It's 11 p.m.
• NOW: Your Mom presents you with an organic tote bag on which she's stencilled your name, the holiday and the year with dye she's made from soaking organic fruits and vegetables. She clips four flashing orange lights shaped like small pumpkins onto your costume and bag. At 6:34 p.m., your Mom buckles you into the back of the Range Rover. She drives to the first neighbour's house and waits in front of it until precisely 6:37 p.m., when she gives you permission to unbuckle and go up to the first door. After the first house gives you a sugar-free, organic sucker and a toothbrush, you get back into the Range Rover and your Mom drives you next door, where you repeat the process until precisely 8:01 p.m. when your Mom drives you home.

CANDY:

• THEN: You rush into the house and dump the candy from your pillowcase onto the floor. Your Mom immediately takes the apple (because it has razor blades in it) and the Pop Rocks (because they make your stomach explode, especially if you mix them with Coke in your mouth). She hands you one of the homemade popcorn balls from your stash so you can eat it while you sort through your candy. Your Mom puts the pillowcases back on your pillows and tells you to check the chocolate for pin holes in case someone injected something into it.
• NOW: Your Mom carefully helps you out of your costume. You go upstairs to take a shower while your Mom swabs your candy wrappers for signs of drugs, explosives or other illegal substances. She throws away the products that are not organic and separates the candy into chocolate vs. non-chocolate. She unwraps the 17 toothbrushes you received and puts them into the dishwasher to sterilize them. When you come downstairs, clean and in organic pajamas, you are allowed to pick one piece of candy to enjoy before you go to bed.  Your mom searches Pinterest for healthy ways to use leftover Halloween candy and looks for local dentist offices that will trade candy for another toothbrush.

AFTER HALLOWEEN:

• THEN: You wear that costume every single day until it falls apart. The cracked plastic mask lasts a little longer because your Mom keeps replacing that broken rubber string on the back of the mask with a rubber band. Next year, you're bummed because your plastic mask is too cracked to wear.
• NOW: Your Mom carefully rinses your non-GMO corn costume in the organic homemade laundry detergent. After, she carefully folds it, places it in a recycled bag made of hand-sewn fibers and donates it to the church for next year's costume exchange. She then immediately starts researching handmade Christmas gifts on Pinterest.