Halloween Secrets {Insp}

"Halloween History"

All hallows and Hallowmas - the eve of All Saints
Day (Nov. 1st.).............Halloween is celebrated
with pranks and merrymaking, masquerade parties,
weird decorations, witch stories, amusing games
and the like...

Trick or treat ~~~~~~~sweets or pranks
Halloween goes back to pagan practices in the
British isles.

The ancient celts believed that on the evening of
October 31st. Saman, lord of the dead, called
forth many evil spirits. To ward off these
supernatural creatures of darkness, the Celtic
druids made great bonfires.

Many heathen customs survived into Christian
times and continued...."All saints day", became
a church festival in 837...."All soul's day", (Nov. 2nd.)

Observance began in 998....

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"Halloween Secrets"

I don't know how it is at your house, but around here
there are two questions that invariably occupy an
inordinate amount of time and attention about this
time every year: what are the children going to be
for Halloween, and where did Mom hide the
trick-or-treat candy?

Through the years, I have developed a stock answer
to the "what should I be?" question: "Just be a good
person." For some reason, they don't even bother
to ask me anymore. I don't know why.

But the second question is trickier, probably because
I'm usually the one asking it. See, I've lived with this
woman for 21 years now. I know how she does things.
She buys a bunch of Halloween candy as soon as our
grocer puts it on the shelves -- just after the Fourth of
July. She's been doing this ever since we got burned
one year. We waited until the day before Halloween
to buy candy, and there wasn't any good stuff (read:
"chocolate candy bars") left. So now she buys it early
and hides it, since the average shelf-life of un-hidden
chocolate in our house is about 37 seconds.

What I don't understand is why I seem to be the only
one in the family who can never find Mom's Halloween
stash. The other day, 7-year-old Jonathan was
wandering around the house munching on a trick-or-
treat-sized Snickers bar. "Hey, Jon," I asked, "where'd
you get that?"

"Shhh!" he hissed, spewing a little stream of
chocolate-caramel-nut spray. "It's a secret!"

"I know!" I whispered. "So share the secret with me!"
"Mommy said don't tell."
"She meant that you shouldn't tell the other kids,"
I assured him. "It's OK to tell Daddy."
"Mommy said 'specially don't tell Daddy!"
"That's right, Dad," said 9-year-old Elizabeth, who
had a mini-Milky Way in her hand. "We're not
supposed to tell you where the candy is."

"But you guys know," I whined.
"That's because Mama trusts us," Elizabeth said.
"If we tell, she won't trust us anymore."
"Besides," Andrea added, "somebody has to not
know where it is, or else there wouldn't be any
point in hiding it." This is as close as you get to
logic with a 16-year-old on a 3 Musketeers high.

Just then 18-year-old Joe walked in with a little bag
of Whoppers. "Mom's getting better," he said,
swallowing malted milk and chocolate. "It took
me four minutes to find the stash this year."

"That's because I helped hide it," said 20-year-old
AmyJo, maturely munching a Milk Dud. "No more
Ms. Nice Guy!"
"But what about Mr. Nice Guy?" I asked my children.
"What about me?"

"What is it you always say to us, Dad?" AmyJo asked.
"I could do it for you, but I love you too much to deprive
you of the joy and satisfaction of doing it for yourself."
She looked at me triumphantly as her brothers and
sisters convulsed in laughter around her. She had
been waiting for at least 16 years to turn that line
around on me, and it felt good.

And if you promise not to tell I'll let you in on a little
secret: it felt good to me, too. Some of my teaching
was sinking in, whether they liked it or not. And if they
were using it against me, maybe they were occasionally
using it against the Big Bad World, too.

At least, I like to think so. And now if you'll excuse me,
I've got to get down to the store -- you know, before
all the "good stuff" is gone."

               -- Joseph Walker
Received on Sun Oct 30 10:22:48 2005