In the wake of Hurricane Sandy come cancellations, not just of classes, but of the all-important school Halloween parties and parades ? and now, for some towns, the eminently practical suggestion that parents, and children, postpone or cancel Halloween itself. On Slate?s DoubleX blog (my former blogging home), Emily Bazelon asks ?Should We Postpone Halloween??
She?s not the first to ask. The Cloud Mom blogger Melissa Lawrence wrote me yesterday that she?ll be taking her kids ?room to room? for Halloween. She watched the hurricane news (in a New York suburb, fortunately with power) with her older sons. ?When one of them protested over Halloween, we told him it just wasn?t that important this year, when others are suffering,? she wrote.
It?s not, of course. Halloween is strikingly unimportant in itself, a minor holiday blessedly without religious defenders. But for children, it?s a highlight of the calendar, on par with Christmas and Hanukkah, certainly outranking Thanksgiving and putting Passover in the shade. It?s sheer, unadulterated fun (if with too much sugar and some angst over costumes).
I, for a whole host of reasons I?ve written about before, love Halloween. And I worry that it?s easy for me to write this, from my rural New Hampshire perch, where one day without school and without power is but a side effect of the still-swirling edge of the storm. But while towns and mayors and governors need to do what?s best for their citizens as a whole, there?s no reason parents who want to can?t do what?s best for their smallest citizens at home.
If you?re feeling even remotely festive, you could grab a few neighbors and set up outdoor trick-or-treat spots in the largest safe backyard. Those teenagers prone to going door-to-door in lame costumes collecting a pillowcase full of candy might be delighted to? carry out a card table and a jack-o-lantern and set up as a mini trick-or-treat house. No one wants children, or traveling families, out on unsafe streets, which means you?ll have to keep it local. Apartment dwellers have an easy indoor option. And if there?s no school tomorrow either, and someone?s willing to host, it?s a pretty good night for an impromptu family party at which I guarantee no one will be judging the quality of the food or d?cor.
I?m a former New Yorker, feeling, I suspect, some of what city exiles felt in the aftermath of 9/11. It?s odd to see images of our old home in Chelsea dark, of the subway stations we know so well full of water. I?m not pushing Halloween on the grieving or those reeling from damage that?s hard to fathom, or encouraging? defying city and town decisions. I?m suggesting that if you love Halloween; if you?ve got a houseful of stir-crazy children; if you might be inclined to empty the cabinets of every piece of orange food and drape some sheets over chairs for ghosts or a trick-or-treat fort; then tonight might be the time to just make Halloween happen.
I?ve said before that part of the fun of Halloween is that there is no spirit of Halloween, no message, no meaning. But I find myself paraphrasing those lines from ?The Grinch Who Stole Christmas:? ?He HADN?T stopped Halloween from coming! IT CAME!? Sandy (not towns and mayors doing their best) is the Halloween Grinch this year, and maybe there is a little bit of Halloween spirit or message to be found. Maybe this Halloween you declare, in the immortal words of Monty Python, ?I?m not dead yet!?
If Halloween isn?t happening in your town, will you muster up a mini-celebration? How?
Source: http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/31/can-halloween-be-postponed-or-does-it-come-anyway/
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