A ninja, Snow White, and Undertale Sans went to a Halloween parade. They met up with Mario and grim reaper, and were escorted by glowing hair woman, tall creepy guy, and a Handmaid.

Why Do People Like Halloween So Much?

People like Halloween because they dress up, follow firetrucks and a gigantic pumpkin balloon in a parade.

They delight in an oversized dinosaur dancing in the street.

People like Halloween because you run into friends and neighbors, and you may not recognize them in a sea of people walking behind firetrucks in a parade.

Your people, and all people, become community, because our collective kids believe in Halloween. The kids inside of us believe in costumes, dressing up, and in the magic of being somebody else for a little while.

We like Halloween because we become somebody magical, or powerful, or scary, or beautiful, in a way we don’t feel like we can be during work, or school, or at the grocery store.

***

Halloweens of years past flip through my mind.

There was the year I carried my newborn around the neighborhood in a dinosaur costume, sure that there’d never been a cuter trick-or-treater.

The year he was a cowboy.

The two Halloweens in a row when he was a fireman.

There was the first year I’d worried about him not saying “trick-or-treat,” and then a second year of that, and a third.

The year Robert and I dressed up with him, as the failed Supers. Robert more daring than I with a fake belly on top of his own.

But oh, the costumes, friends. The costumes.

There was last year, when a man called Tucker over to show his costume to his young son.

The young boy crying, afraid, and Tucker ripping his mask off to say “I’m so sorry, little guy! It’s just a mask,” and the father handing Tucker a few bucks to say thank you.

Us, trying to refuse it and accepting it because it felt weird to not accept it, after he insisted.

My niece, crying about why a dad wanted to scare his son. Us, trying to explain but also having zero words to explain because what’s funny in that, when you’re the kid?

***

The parade last night, and a teenage boy telling my son that his Undertale Sans costume was the coolest he’d ever seen.

Tucker, glowing and swelling with those words. Words that gave him the courage to approach Link, from Legends of Zelda, to tell her that her costume was cool.

The beaming as she yelled down the street, “Sans!” “Thank you, Sans.”

Tucker, saying he’s stupid because he mistook another grim reaper for his friend. Trying to not cry, and then forgetting tears when somebody else recognized his costume, and then mine, and took a photo.

“It’s like we’re celebrities,” he said.

I hugged him, and realized that this is the Halloween I realize everything’s changed, although not that much has changed, day-to-day.

As the calendar chuckles, I remember drawing a silly Halloween report card.

I remember before I became a mom meeting two people whose names I never learned. I’ve always wondered whether they met. Maybe, they became a family.

The “girl next door” seemed like she’d like “one night stand.”

I hope they met.

The Halloween I realize that I’ll never worry about being a Wonder Woman Skank, because those worries have been traded for something that feels deeper somehow, or maybe, just more “age appropriate.”

Not that any society who uses Handmaids would cast me as anything other than an Aunt… but still, it felt good, having people ask for a photo, and seeing two other women dressed as them.

I’ll remember this Halloween, when I remember past ones as I decorate our home, and delight in a not-so-little little boy’s getting Boo’d with treats at the door.

This Halloween, I remember that eight-years-old is still young, but old enough for the calendar to remind me that if I add the short time of my life as a mom to the next eight years, he’ll soon no longer hold my hand during trick-or-treating, and will likely chuckle at my nostalgia for the year he was Undertale Sans, and a teen boy told him he had the best costume ever.

Those memories, and the calendar laughing, makes me want to remember this Halloween, always. After all, these are the reasons that people like Halloween, so much.

***

This has been a Finish the Sentence Friday post. This week’s sentence is “When it comes to Halloween…” and is co-hosted by the lovely Vic of Taking it a Step at at Time.