Some enjoy decorating for Halloween (10/29/07)

I read somewhere that Halloween is second only to Christmas in spending on holiday decorations. At first I thought this was strange until I realized that most people don't usually decorate their houses for other holidays.

Oh, sure, we display flags for the Fourth of July and occasionally for Veteran's Day. There are a few families who go all out for Easter but can you think of any other holidays that require mass amounts of shopping and candy?

When I drive around town I see several houses all decked out for Halloween. There are goblins and monsters galore hanging out in the front yards. Orange and black lights adorn shrubs and tombstones sprout in lawns. It's all harmless fun but I sure am glad I don't have to dispose of cobwebs bigger than I am or figure out where to store Frankenstein's monster after the holiday is over.

The all-natural cobwebs inside my house are bad enough. I do have a spider living in the side yard that insists on stringing one strand of invisible silk between the trees. I hear little tiny giggles when I run into it every morning. I think he or she gathers a bunch of little spider friends and says, "Watch this!" when I walk out the door in the morning. That is enough cobwebs for me without draping fake ones everywhere.

My little brother loves Halloween. He and his family frequent a campground that has trick or treating early in October. This year they dressed up their 11-year-old son as a biker. He had fake tattoos on flesh-colored sleeves, a bandanna around his head and they completed the costume with fake cigarettes.

The cigarettes were a problem. Apparently they lit up and some kind of granular stuff was inside so he could pretend to blow smoke. My brother and his wife were repeatedly chastised for letting their kid smoke.

The other problem the cigarettes caused was that one of the cousins went along and biker-boy didn't want to share his cigarettes for fear that the other kid would use up all the smoke.

And for the record, I firmly believe that if biker-boy ever got caught smoking real cigarettes he wouldn't be able to sit down for a week. I loved candy cigarettes as a child and can't stand the smell of the real ones so I am not one of those who believe that children are too stupid to know the difference.

I have given in to the shopping madness just a little. I have a row of tiny witches on the kitchen windowsill. One of them doesn't like it there and she keeps jumping into the sink. Only a few more days and she can go back in the box with the miniature Easter bunnies and the leprechaun.

I find it fascinating that so many of us complain that we don't have enough money. Our paychecks are too small and our expenses too large. Yet we, as a people, have enough for elaborate Halloween displays. Our food banks are begging for donations but the stores are full of frivolous things.

Is it that a blow-up ghost is a one-time expense but food and shelter are ongoing costs? Is it that a simple decoration costs just a little bit but a needed prescription drug costs as much as a week's pay?

Or is it that Halloween allows us to escape for a little while and act like children again? If we stuff some old clothes with leaves and set it up as a headless monster are we telling our personal demons that they could also be beheaded? Perhaps it is a visible sign that not all of us are living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to get by.

I believe that our priorities are often skewed but that sometimes we have to do something silly. Sometimes we need to break out of the rut and fill the yard with pumpkins, goblins and other inane objects that we won't clean up until the snow flies. The shopping meccas and all the advertising that goes along with them entice us to let go a little and have some fun.

Just don't expect to see giant spider webs and tombstones in my yard. The tiny witches on the windowsill are enough of a tribute to Halloween for me.[[In-content Ad]]