All Hallow's Eve ... eve

My child refused to dress up for her dance class Halloween thing yesterday.

I'm not going to lie; this doesn't upset me at all. She was adamant we wouldn't even deviate from her normal outfit, though I did sneak in a pair of My Little Legs to keep her warm (which made her look like a less sweaty version of the chick from "Flashdance"). Know why this is awesome to me? My kid was being herself and going against the grain. At least that's what I'm telling myself after last year's meltdown about putting on a damn costume for class.

Before anyone can call me out and say I'm stealing part of their childhood by not enforcing a dress up policy, please just stop. I'm doing nothing of the sort. I'm allowing my child a choice, which I actually think is fairly responsible parenting since I don't want to be the first form of peer pressure they encounter.

As I explained to Boy Wonder last night, I don't think we should focus on the whole begging for candy aspect of Halloween this year, particularly when there is so much more significance to this holiday than added dental bills in the years to come. Plus, our kids are still little and it's going to be a lot colder this year than last year and we've moved to a neighborhood that gets, like, absolutely no trick-or-treaters. I don't want to have to load the kids up and drive somewhere just so they can get frozen and loaded up on sugar and keep me up half the night. They do that just fine without candy.

Aside from all that, feel free to call me crazy, but I want my kids to learn about the historical aspect of Halloween, not the Hallmark version. There is so much more to this "holiday" than costumes and candy. Historically it marked the end of the harvest. It was the changing of seasons. The end of one year and the beginning of another. The blurring of this world and the other, making it possible for the ghosts of the dead to rise and cause trouble. It's kind of enchanting when you stop to think about it.

Just as enchanting are the Day of the Dead, All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day. Considering my adoration for all things food, Day of the Dead is filled with celebrations totally up my alley.

Before I find myself on a soapbox ranting about how far we've come from truly appreciating these days that represent and are meant to help us show respect to our dead and bare my soul with confessions of my fairly large collection of books on Wicca, let me get back to the point.

Peer pressure. And food. Lots of food.

I make homemade chili for Halloween. It's a tradition my mom started when my sister and I were younger. She also paid us to stay home (she's never much been into the holiday either) and not go trick-or-treating, which was stellar because we honestly got $5 to sit at home, hand out candy, eat candy, watch TV and eat more candy. And sometimes there were homemade popcorn balls to go with the Kit-Kats and chili. And apple cider and powdered donuts. Also, it saved us from trying to come up with some ridiculous costume idea that would look good with a heavy winter jacket and boots. Hello, fall in Western New York.

Even when I was a kid I wasn't all about doing the dress up thing. Often I found myself wanting find a costume and go begging for candy because that's what my friends did. It seemed that's what was expected, so I would ask if I could go and when I was little we did go house to house.

Then one year my sister was sick, and then another year I was sick and then there was a year we both were sick, and I just stopped giving a shit. We'd make our money to man the door and the candy stash, eat our chili, watch a movie and lights out. It was enjoyable. It was even better than going out, because we got to see everyone's costumes and "oooh" and "ahhh" over the princesses and act afraid of the scary monsters.

As I got older, I dug into stories of ghosts, the occult, cemeteries and hauntings. Halloween became more about who left us than about costumes. Even as a teenager, it was a day I felt we should celebrate those who have gone before us. As I've written about before, there was never a disbelief of the other side in my home growing up. We openly discussed the afterlife, death, spirits and ghosts. It was hard not to talk about them when some of us in the family are open to their influence, so to speak, and frequently saw our visitors arrive though no one was at the door.

It took me a long time to finally just say, "I'm not doing the Halloween thing this year," as opposed to "I haven't found the right costume" or "I don't know what to go as." The last time I attempted to dress up was in college, and man what a massive drunken fail that was. We just aren't even going to talk about it.

I don't want my kids to feel pressured to be something on Halloween. So, that's why I let Josie choose her outfit yesterday - wear a costume or her normal leotard. And I'll let the girls choose to dress up or not next year, and the year after that and for all the years to come. 

Besides, who wouldn't want to snuggle up, watch movies and eat chili to mark the beginning of a season filled with long cold nights? Add in a bottle of wine and I call that a date night.