Nightmares, Nephews, and the Halloween Scrooge

Although autumn precedes winter (and just the mention of the "w" word is enough to kick-start my seasonal affective disorder), it is my favorite season. Something about the cooler quality of the sunshine and the crispness of the outer temperature makes me feel, ironically, all warm and fuzzy (or is that the multiple layers I've taken to wearing?). I also love the celebrations of the season which add up to time spent with family: Halloween (though I find I've become somewhat of a Halloween scrooge; more on that later), Thanksgiving, and the promise of Christmas coming. And in the midst of all of this is God's glorious creation awash in marvelous color. He is truly an awesome Creator and this time of year I am reminded of it. Other attributes of God for which I am gratefully in awe right now: His constant provision and unwavering faithfulness.

I am also praising Him as the giver of life since it appears my newest nephew may join the world today. Stay tuned for that exciting news.

Back to the Halloween scrooge discovery. Fond memories of trick-or-treating are tucked away into my childhood nostalgia thanks to a mom and dad that focused on the fun and not foul aspects of this crazy holiday. So I'm stumped as to my "bah humbug" outlook as an adult. Six years ago I was overjoyed that we would be moving into our house right before Halloween. My first opportunity to pass out candy to the neighborhood kids - wahoo! It was all, inexplicably, downhill from there. The following year found us sitting in the pitch black in our house, shades drawn, hunkered down like criminals on the lamb. And even though our house screamed "go away!" kids still rang the doorbell in hopes of sweet treats. To no avail. Luckily we experienced no tricks in retaliation. With the arrival of our own children I vowed not to initiate costumes and candy-begging until they were the ones eagerly asking for it. However, when Jeran was 18 months old, a friend at church offered to let us borrow a costume and other friends invited us to tag along with them on Oct. 31st, so we did. Jeran, of course, was not at all interested, so it was left up to us to sheepishly shuffle up to doors and mumble "trick or treat" followed by "we're with the dinosaur" with a jerk of the head behind us to where Jeran sat in the stroller.

Fast forward to last year. We broke down and dressed the boys up (adorably, I might add) as a fireman and dalmation.

Jeran LOVED it and has been trick or treating around our house for the last year. So why the continued bad attitude toward Halloween, you might ask? Excellent question, dear reader. This year has been a fiasco of costume debate. A friend of mine has a Thomas the Tank Engine costume her son wore last year which she is willing to lend us. Perfect, I thought. At first, Jeran was on board with this idea (no pun intended. Well, maybe a little.) Then suddenly last week he insisted upon being a scarecrow. When we revisited this plan a few days ago he explained that with that costume he would surely scare people, and he should probably be a fireman again. Wonderful. Especially since I just got rid of last year's costume, genius that I am. Yesterday he came home from school (and this broke my heart) claiming that kids would think he's silly if he dresses up and he doesn't want to be ANYthing. We can't really nail down where this is coming from since I'm sure all the kids in his preschool will be dressing up. I realize girls are hitting puberty at 8 and kids are dressing like teenagers at age 10 and all, but the world hasn't changed so much that costume-wearing is uncool at 4, right? So we finally convinced him to at least stick with being a fireman again, and that's where we are currently. That is, searching for someone from whom we can borrow a costume for this purpose. Know anybody? Also adding to my scrooge-ness was our pumpkin carving fiasco. I won't even go there. Suffice it to say that JAMES AND I had a blast creating our pumpkin friend. Say hi, Sylvester:

One more thing that turns me off to Halloween, I think, is the overzealous decorating of select members of our neighborhood. Their grotesque yard makeovers and obsessive use of blood-splattered displays and disfigured characters is way out of control, to the point that I have to avoid certain streets to protect the overactive imagination of my four-year-old.

Speaking of which, my heart aches for the nightmares which he suffers, probably due to the intensity and sensitivity that are so prevalant in his personality. Each night before bed we pray with him, and he always reminds us to pray for nice dreams. It's been a good lesson on asking the Lord to protect us and giving up to Him the things of which we're fearful. But several times a week the bad dreams persist. He usually remembers them quite vividly too. He hasn't started asking us the hard questions about why, since we've prayed to the Lord, the bad dreams continue. He truly exhibits a child-like faith and persists in prayer, and that is a good lesson for me as well. In the meantime I also need to be more vigilant about limiting things he sees and hears (his dreams have been triggered by everything from an Arthur cartoon to a Thomas book and most recently by a discussion at school about Halloween). At the very least I need to discuss with him these things. I do have to say that the upside to this is his vivid imagination which he uses frequently and which I hope he will continue to use.

Well, my time to update is over and off I must go to lend a hand on exciting projects like yard fertilization and grocery replenishment. At least there is this is glorious sun and the pending arrival of a new baby boy to drive away the pre-winter blahs.