How the Grinch Stole Halloween
Scenes from quarantine — Day 171:
We keep a piece of paper taped to the wall right beside the front door, just a plain sheet from a notepad, utterly unremarkable save that it is filled with cryptic numbers: 2, 7, 8, 14, 15…they climb higher in no discernible pattern for several rows, each number carefully crossed out but the last one. The handwriting shifts and flows from row to row. My own precise print intermingles with Kevin’s spidery crawl, Littlest’s perfectly formed digits, and other, unfamiliar scripts, and that last number is written a bit larger, in Middle Child’s unmistakably enthusiastic hand: 784.
For 364 days of the year that page makes absolutely no sense and there is little reason to keep it there except family tradition. However, one day of the year, the page is carefully taken down, then year written on top, and an identical, unmarked page is taped in its place. We place a pencil on the table just beside the mail slot, and then, we wait…
As the sun slips below the horizon, the doorbell rings for the first time, but hardly the last. Though it was months ago now, I remember the 2 — it was the twins who live on the corner, both dressed in Avengers’ superhero suits with masks that would have been intimidating on someone taller than three and a half feet. I grabbed the heavy ceramic bowl painted with blue and green dragons off the table and held it low so they could peer inside and make a very difficult choice. They were the first two Trick-or-Treaters of Halloween. Between us, we would hold out that bowl 782 more times, doing the quick arithmetic to count and add the number of bodies crowding our doorstep to the number on the page, rapidly scrawling it down again and again before the street finally fell silent and the ghosts and ghouls stumbled off to bed.
In between dispensing handfuls of chocolate bars and lollipops, chaos would inevitably erupt in the living room as our own children executed Byzantine plans with friends to collect as much candy as possible on the dark, crowded streets of the neighborhood and parents tried to tag them with slightly more glow sticks and flashlights than a Burning Man art installation. Inevitably, a pizza delivery guy would wander up, between scary clowns and inflatable dinosaurs. “Nice pizza delivery costume!” The delivery guy never found that joke funny, but he always took a piece of candy anyway before dashing off to make his next delivery.
Other years, I had a strict rule that Halloween costumes had to be planned by the start of school if any parental participation was expected in their construction. This year…oh, man, this year! Conversations were short, hesitant, we almost didn’t dare to acknowledge the elephant in the room. What are we doing about all the holidays, but most especially, what are we going to do about Halloween?? Middle child posited that the streets would be deserted and was the only one in the family brave enough to suggest anything at all. She thought dressing up “all creepy” and then dancing about in the street to amuse and confuse anyone who thought of leaving their houses would be an excellent idea. Over the last couple weeks I saw a handful of others independently suggest the same basic plan, leaving me with the unsettling sense that the streets would be far from deserted on Halloween night.
There have been a few, tentative discussions in our neighborhood and city Facebook pages. Everyone was asking the same question, everyone had a suggestion, some good, some terrible. Someone always said, “Hopefully we’ll get this thing behind us and the kids will be able to go out and have fun…imagine how disappointed they will be if they have to stay home.”
Today, with Labor Day firmly in the rearview mirror (though its aftereffects won’t be clear for two or three more weeks), Los Angeles County moved to quickly lay out the policy on the next big social holiday and with their release, all the maybes were silenced, all the hope dried up, and disappointment blossomed in its place. There will be no trick-or-treating (or trunk-or-treating) permitted in Los Angeles County. No Halloween carnivals or fall festivals will be allowed. No parties. While we can think outside-the-box to come up with new, innovative ways to celebrate All Hallow’s Eve in isolation, Halloween as we have always known it is effectively cancelled.
LA happens to be one of the first places in the United States to have struck a blow at traditional Halloween and several industries, from candy companies, novelties, and costumes to season decor, and decorative squash agribusiness, are still trying to figure out the economic impacts of pandemic Halloween and whether they will be hard-hit by the sudden loss of celebrations or will have banner sales as Americans go overboard trying to save Halloween however they can. The National Confectioners Association released a statement that suggested this may mean that we now can look forward to “more candy bowl moments at home with family and close friends” (bold of you to assume that I don’t already have regular candy bowl moments at home, alone, in the dark, just me and the overwhelming pandemic stress, NCA!).
Whatever the economic reactions are, LA has also opened the door for families to start talking about Halloween, what things are important parts of our traditions and what things can be gently set aside for the health and wellbeing of our friends and communities. Disappointment by now is becoming a familiar companion and as parents we are growing accustomed to drawing crying children close and making a safe place for them to be sad about what they’ve lost (large or small).
Our family was suddenly certain that this year there won’t be a paper scrawled with numbers by the front door this year or hundreds of hands ringing our doorbell and hundreds of masked and painted faces eagerly peering into the candy bowl. We knew our tradition would melt away this year and we wondered if it would ever come back again. I felt very much like the Whos of Whoville after the Grinch stole Christmas and wondered if the Grinch had ever happened to steal Halloween as well, if the Whos had figured out how to make Halloween happen without “packages, boxes or bags!”
It turns out that the Grinch did, in fact, steal Halloween…or at least there was a Grinch Halloween special that aired on television in 1977. It is eerily prophetic. An ill wind blows and every family in Whoville shuts themselves inside for the night, safe in their own homes as the Grinch makes his way down to Whoville to frolic in the night. One little boy in search of the “euphemism” stumbles out into the dark night, and faces the Grinch and every terror he carries in his giant cart. He bravely stares them down and waits through the long night, knowing that eventually the ill wind will die down, the terrors will pass and even the Grinch will retreat back to his dank cave. And once this small boy has confronted the dark fears, held the Grinch at bay, and turned him back, the Whos open their windows and doors, trepidatious at first, then jubilant that the danger has passed and they can delight in the company of friends and neighbors once more.
With Halloween, we are at the start of a series of tradition- and expectation-filled landmarks. This transforms Halloween into a pivotal moment to turn the discussion toward what we can embrace that brings us joy and how we can share what is special with our friends across the broad gaps that isolation and social distancing bring. Halloween also gives us a chance to start a dialogue about all the new terrors that have inserted themselves into our lives, and how we are already confronting these fears in small, but tangible ways. This year, we’ve all learned that there are things more frightening by far than horror movie monsters and large spiders and we continue to see and call out the horrors around us and stand up to the monsters that walk among us. How beautiful that this Halloween we can not only help our children recognize these new fears they have faced but also express our pride in the bravery they have shown week after week, month after month in what has been a very scary year.
As we work together to face our fears and act with bravery to protect one another across the many upcoming holidays, this ill wind too will eventually die down and we will be able to gather together with friends and family again to take up our traditions as communities. Until then, enjoying “more candy bowl moments at home” really doesn’t sound so terrible either. Instead of counting trick-or-treaters, this might even be the perfect year to finally count how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.
(Because I know people will ask, below is the link to the “Halloween is Grinch Night”)
