My love of Halloween is deep and longstanding. I am no Halloween convert, no 21st century Janey-come-lately embracer of pumpkin spice and inktober. Obviously, I do love spooktober and inktober and all -tober portmanteaus. But I love them because of my upbringing and values, not because of influencers. I am a cradle costumer.

My dad sewed (or hot glued/stapled) all of our costumes growing up. My requests were rather straightforward. A grey bunny one autumn, a pink present the next. My younger sisters advanced his sewing skills - he patterned, pieced, and basted both a Sleeping Beauty costume AND a Snow White costume for Halloween 1990.* [I was a book of ghost stories that year (Cardboard box with decorated cover that opened to reveal pretend writing, grey hoodie, ghoulish facepaint). I never was cool.]

As we matúred**, our costumes became more ‘assembled’ than ‘created,’ as we fashioned theater castoffs and family hand me downs into disco girls and farmers and elderly women in bathrobes. My dad needed another outlet for his creativity. So he and my mom started dressing up. It started simply enough: your basic ghosts, gold and silver robots, a hippie and his acid trip (giant penguin). But that wasn’t enough.

My parents transform their garage for trick or treating. No, not with streamers or a simple cauldron with dry ice. Rather, they have hoarded set flats and plywood and large cardboard boxes over the years, and they construct interactive sets for the costumed to walk through. It almost always starts with the costumes - who do we want to be? - and then proceeds to world building. They have developed a following within their neighborhood. And no wonder - recent themes have included Under the Sea, Classic Movie Monsters, Toy Shop, Alice in Wonderland, and Harry Potter, while the in-theme-costume casts have expanded beyond my parents to include myself, my kids, my sisters and their families, my cousins, and dear friends.

When you marry, you are joining families together, each with their own culture and traditions. My husband comes from a different Halloween…context. By which I mean…look, he had boring Halloweens growing up. And yes, fine, he also had a knife pulled on him for his candy once, which leaves a bad taste in ones mouth, and not just from those weird off-brand chocolates wrapped in foil. So. Different formative experiences, one (mine) clearly preferable. It is a testament to our love and commitment that we have been able to build common ground between us.

How this works is that on October 1st, Mike begins to schlepp the Halloween bins down from the attic. Over the course of several days, the children and I pull out decor - Halloween crafts of years past, wall decals bought on the prior Nov 2nd, pillows, tablecloths, windows clings, stuffed animals, special legos, towels, trivets, many many candles, pumpkins, postcards, a shower curtain. And of course the box of curated spooky books. Mike puts up the high items.

The boys and I develop elaborate costume ideas and then create them with some combination of beginning sewing, hot glueing, that iron-able hemming stuff, and puffy paint. Mike will be something on theme as well. Like, when we were Under the Sea, he wore a blue shirt and was The Ocean. Great stuff.

I would never claim that my beloved spouse resists Halloween. Nor does he openly mock my delight in creativity, pretend, and credulity. But sometimes I wonder…is that a battery-operated candle reflected in his eye? Or is it the mad gleam of resentment, building, slowly building over lo these 20+ years? Perhaps this is why he always plans Guys Weekends for October…

* Jess, please fact check my dates.

**inaccurate