Halloween Grinch

"There is a child in every one of us who is still a trick-or-treater looking for a brightly-lit front porch." 
-Robert Brault

This is my porch on the 31st of October. No bails of hay, no large spiders hanging from the ceiling, no lights around the door, there's not even a single pumpkin. You have to understand where I came from.

My mother came from Swedish stock. When she was in the middle of elementary school Halloween parties, her parents were a mere six years off the boat from Sweden. There were no Halloween festivities in Sweden, at least not for my mom's parents. One year, my grandmother sent mom to school in her traditional Swedish costume with an indian mask. Even at seven years old, mom new that was a stupid costume.

So Mom didn't get off on Halloween. Besides, we were poor. We had one hideous witch wig, a fabulous Cleopatra wig made out of yarn, and Mom's can-can dress from her young adult dance days sitting in the Halloween box. Back in the 80's the cool rich kids wore store bought costumes. The other less affluent children came dressed as a Can-Can dancing Cleopatra or a boozed up homeless man in a hideous witch wig. I'll give you a minute to decide which category the Fellows children fell under. Mom has always professed to be a Halloween Grinch.

Dad, on the other hand, was an equal opportunity holiday Grinch. He tried to give the same grumpy treatment to all holidays, and Halloween was no exception. Mom would take us trick-or-treating while Dad would stay home to hand out candy. And by hand out candy I mean turn off every light in the house, retire to his dark bedroom, and spend the rest of the night sprawled out on the floor in front of his stereo listening to Dead Goat Saloon.

Let me just say that it is an effort for me to have any level of Halloween Holiday Cheer, but I did my best. These days the cool kids wear hand sewn costumes. Jonah wanted to be a dunedain ranger from Lord of the Rings this Halloween. Which is exactly what he was. His costume in no way resembled a Robin Hood costume from amazon.com. And I'm proud to say that the porch light remained on all night. Each generation gets a little better than the last. Based on instagram and Facebook, I take it that no one else suffers from Halloween stupors like I do. It seems that all the rest of the world had a smashing holiday. Ours was good too, in its own silly unpinterest-worthy Fellows way.