Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet

At neck-breaking speed we have run head first into The Holidays way ahead of schedule.

My mother should consider running an airline.

But since we careened over the river and through the woods, and leapfrogged over Thanksgiving and straight into Christmas, we nearly skipped right over the pure entertainment that is Halloween.

Halloween is arguably the best holiday of all, and arguably the least appreciated.

It is a nearly pressure free holiday. No one gets rattled by the approach of Halloween. No one, with the possible exception of my neighbor, who throws an elaborate neighborhood party every year with outrageous decor, and a gourd hunt, and pinatas and contests, leaving no stone unturned and outdoing herself year over year. And maybe those folks who are so utterly without creativity that the notion of a costume gives them the vapors.

I love a holiday where the point of the decor is to be more scary than pretty, and where a little tackiness is perfectly acceptable if not desired, and dim lighting hides the fact that your house is a little dusty. And no one expects to walk into your house and breathe in familiar holiday scents courtesy of $18 candles. Rotting pumpkins on the front step suffice. Dollar store candles in 50 cent garage sale lanterns and ceramic pumpkins purchased at 70% off at last year's craft store blow out are the perfect touch.

No one actually cares what you give away at the door. Of course every kid knows the exact longitude and latitude of the neighbor who gives out full size candy bars. But no one feels the pressure to compete. I have given away everything from Blow Pops to Fun Sized whatevers to glow-in-the-dark vampire teeth and not a single kid has looked even slightly disappointed.

I don't rate the costume effort, they don't rate the loot. It is a pretty even deal.

And it gives me a chance to see neighbors I never see except when we blow by each other on the street on the way to work or other obligations. See new babies. Remark at how big everyone has gotten. Get up to speed on who is pregnant, divorced, on the verge of death, selling their house. Mrs. Kravitz's the world over LOVE Halloween.

But best of all, and I realize this is a personal opinion, is the absence of the pressure that is usually brought about by a holiday for which there is a traditional meal.

With no meal - and what would that be? Eye of Newt Stew? - there is no need to invite anyone - or be invited anywhere, and have to accept or decline or wonder why you weren't invited or who else might be invited and all that crap. So no one gets pressured into "having Halloween this year" and enduring all the nonsense that befalls all of my other family holidays.

It is truly a beautiful thing. Because in a small family like ours, there is nowhere to hide. There is just my sister and brother and me. It is a glaring omission if one of us decides not to invite one of the sibs. And the uninvited sib clearly knows, too. It is a pressure large families don't have. My mother was one of nearly a dozen kids. No one could possibly have been expected to invite all the sibs and their spouses and their kids. No one has that much furniture! So a few sibs would obviously do a portion of the inviting, and someone would draw the short straw and get stuck inviting the misfit sibling. But with crowds like that, his or her obtuseness would surely get drown out by all the other familial noise. Another beautiful thing.

So, I put my mother's latest harangue out of my mind, put on my Little Edie Beale Grey Gardens outfit, practice my "Mothuh Doorlings," light a few Dollar Store candles and enjoy the Trick or Treaters.

For once the cobwebs have been cleared and the pumpkins eaten by squirrels and the fun-size candies all consumed, the games begin.