I Hate Halloween
I hate Halloween. Well, maybe that’s not fair. I don’t hate every single thing about Halloween, just the spooky, scary stuff. I love the little kids in their costumes who come Trick or Treating, unless one is dressed like a monster. The year my kids dressed up as E. T. was okay with me, spacey not scary. And I especially liked their Gypsy Lady and Spider Man costumes another year. And I do love nibbling on the leftover candy. I always buy more than I will need. The thing I hate is the meanness that comes with scaring people. And that we make a whole holiday out of ghosts and horror.
Once, when on an autumn visit to Mexico, I went to a small, family-owned restaurant to find a table set for only one person. It had the best dishes and cutlery, an embroidered napkin, and even a pack of cigarettes by the beer glass. I asked the owner who was coming to eat that was so special and the owner told me that this day was Dia de los Muertas, the Day of the Dead. On this day, Mexican tradition honors those who have passed, inviting them back to attend a special meal with the family—just the way they like it. I loved that! A positive tradition worth celebrating every year.
Another time, when I was teaching college composition, I had a Native American student in my class. Like all my students, he had to write his assignments in a certain form—Explanatory, Expository, Argumentative, Declarative and Descriptive—but the content was his to choose. For his Descriptive paper he wrote about an uncle who had died and how, as the family celebrated their lost loved one, his horse escaped the pen and galloped around and around the teepee, both mourning and celebrating the lost owner. In class, I personally thanked him for sharing this tradition and mystical personal experience. I had not heard of it before and I was deeply moved.
He took the paper back into his hand, gazed at the A grade for a moment, then looked me in the eye, and in that steady Indian way said, “I made it up.”
Happy Trick or Treat, Teacher
