My father’s parenting philosophy was NO: no boyfriend, no kissing, no movies that aren’t cartoons, no parties—nothing but school, prayer, and family. To a young immigrant father, the American wilderness was full of the child molesters and rapists and devil worshipers of local news, so the only way to keep me and my siblings safe was to keep us inside. Unfortunately, this made for a pretty pathetic childhood.
Ah, Disney’s always good for a bit of melodrama.
Whenever one of those special envelopes addressed in child’s writing, filled with glitter and a cardstock invitation to a birthday party arrived in the mail, I would clutch my prize tightly and walk in time to the heart beating in my throat to approach my father. I would plead with him to let me go—all the other girls would be there, parents would be there to chaperone—just please let me go so I can be with my friends! My father would glance down from his newspaper or his movie and say, “NO. These American parents—you never know! They look so nice and so sweet, and then they take you into a bedroom and do NASTY things, or give you alcohol in your juice or kill you! Just stay home! Be a good Christian and pray to God. Read a book—read hundred pages a day!” So while all the other 4th-grade girls stayed up late eating junk food and talking about that hottie JTT and braiding each other’s hair, I was sitting at home with a Bible on my lap, wondering if white parents really were so diabolical. (I still blame by dad for my inability to braid.)
While I usually gave up on asking my dad’s permission to go to parties after the first try, there was one occasion I could not give up on: Halloween. Unlike his caution with birthday parties, my dad wasn’t so worried about strangers filling candy up with drugs or of us getting swept into a madhouse as soon as the door opened—he just thought the holiday was satanic. And if Satan was all I had to battle, I had a chance.
Every year, I went to the library to find books on the origin of Halloween. I kept extensive notes in my head whenever my teachers tried to make finger painting educational by telling us of the invention of candy corn or artificial cobwebs or whatever idiotic origin story they could find. If it was a slow news day and the local paper decided to write a historical perspective on Halloween, I clipped the article and memorized it. And I took my research home and wrote a paper.
(Yes, a paper. I was—and still am, a little—scared of talking to my father. He has these scary crazy eyes when he gets angry, and I write to him to avoid looking at them.)
Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’ve used this GIF before to describe my dad. But that’s because it’s true.
My essays were always about the religious history of the holiday, emphasizing that it’s HALLOWeen, the eve of All Hallows’ Day or All Saints’ Day, a holy time to remember the dead and the saints. If I ever came across anything about witches and devil worship, I’d omit it from my paper. My argument always ended with an assertion that good Christians CAN celebrate Halloween, and probably SHOULD.
He always said no. But, to reward my scholarship and perseverance, he’d allow me to dress up at home and hand out candy. I knew he wouldn’t let me spend a whole $40 on one of those fancy Party City costumes—“Sexy Barmaid” and “Pirate Wench” were luxuries we couldn’t afford—so I settled for face paint sets. I was particularly fond of the year I slathered white and grey paint over my caramel skin to become Vampira: Queen of the Vampires. I remember prancing around the house before night fell, declaring my vamp-ness in a thick Transylvanian accent while my father wondered aloud if this supported my thesis about Halloween being a “holy” night. And though I was envious of the kids whose parents allowed them to go out trick-or-treating, I never felt weird about being the child handing out candy to other children. I was just happy to play along.
It wasn’t until middle school that I became a Halloween Grinch. We had a dress-up week at school, and I went all out. My friend and I figured out creative BFF/couple costumes for each day, and we eagerly awaited the announcements of the grade-level winners at the end of every day. And that bitch won every one of those days, and I wasn’t included in her glory. The only difference between our costumes was that hers looked good because she had money to spend, while mine were, well, shit because I didn’t want to go out and make my parents buy stuff. So while she actually looked like Thing 1 on Storybook Day in a brand-new red sweatsuit with hair spray-painted blue, my Thing 2 was just me in some red shirt I found at home, my hair frizzy and black because blue hair spray wouldn’t show up in my dark hair. And on Wilderness Day, she looked all dark and mysterious when she dressed up as a tree of the enchanted forest, her face streaked with brown camouflage, while I was just my natural brown self in a green shirt. By the end of the week, I had learned that dressing up is only fun if you’re (a) rich enough to get good costumes, and (b) white enough for paint to show up on you.
Yup. Perfect combination.
After that, I just gave up on dressing up for Halloween. I still gave out candy, but I stopped researching and fighting to go trick-or-treating. When my high school friends were still talking about going door-to-door, I just acted like I was too mature to care for candy. On my 17th Halloween, my dad finally asked me if I wanted to go trick-or-treat—and this time, I said No. I actually was too old—and what was the point, anyway?
Once I had backed out of enough themed parties in college, I could tell my friends that dressing up was “just not my thing.” After years of living in dorms and apartments where no children go to beg for candy, my Grinch heart shrank to a microscopic level. I could finally hide in my Mountain of Lameness without being harassed. Not even B, who loves Halloween above all things, could bring me out.
And then, last year, we moved into a house. For the first time in 9 years, I gave out candy again. And fuck. Those kids are cute. I still can’t get over an 8-year-old Batman who was so in character that he used Christian Bale’s raspy/laryngitis-y voice to say “Trick or Treat.”
So this year, I gave it a chance. Our school did a dress-up day for every day of Halloween week, and I participated. On Halloween, I was in my House’s gear, proudly defending Hufflepuffs to the Gryffindors, Slytherins, and Ravenclaws I teach. That night, I handed candy to too many Elsas and Annas and wondered if there is such a thing as “too many” Elsas and Annas in the world.
My costume was pretty badass.
When B had had enough of trick-or-treaters and told me to turn off our lights so we could watch a movie instead of being slaves to the doorbell, I took a peek outside. I saw a world that was always kept from me, something I’ve only experienced through a window or a door: a moonlit street with a parade of costumed ghouls and witches and princesses and everything in between.
There were fewer kids this year. I guess more parents said No, or got scared because there are real monsters in the world that ruined this day. More parents probably decided to shield their kids from sugar and cavities, or had a safer candy experience at a church or an elementary school. I’m just hoping Halloween will hold on long enough for me to finally experience it when I’ve got my own little Elsas and Kristoffs.
[One Fifty] 