Sunday, October 7, 2018

#7 of 31 Days of Halloween: Excitement


There are a few times of year where excitement vibrates in the air, maybe especially the air around children. A kinetic joy bubbles up and it's all we can do to move forward in the ordinary things we have to accomplish before our anticipation pays off and boom! It's Halloween.

The second October began, that half-crazy energy settled on the middle school where I teach. As the month goes on, it will build. Kids will make plans for costumes, parties, and pranks. They'll tell each other scary stories and wax poetic about the good old days when they weren't "too old" to Trick or Treat (some of them will still Trick or Treat this year, "too old" or not).

Sometimes adults catch it a little, at least some of us. The playfulness of it all is contagious. The "let's pretend" license that comes with a time of year where even adults often dress up as something scary, shiny, or just really different than whatever they usually are. 

The giddy energy exceeds even Christmas in some ways. Maybe it's because it's more of an everyone holiday (less tied to religious traditions), and celebrating is less reliant on how much money is in your bank account than the more avaricious commercial side of that December festival.

It's there in the air. Have you caught it yet?

1 comment:

  1. I used to catch it quite a bit when I taught elementary school. The principal got around the whole "Halloween is evil" thing by having the kids dress as their favorite book characters, and it just so happened to coincide with the end of October. I dressed as Johnny Appleseed one year. Another year, I dressed as Paul Bunyan, complete with a blue ox. I don't teach elementary school anymore, and now my youngest is an adult, so I don't have any excuses to make a costume. I don't know of any adult Halloween parties. It's kind of sad.

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