There’s no knowing when you will do something for the last time. I suppose this is why we cling so to tradition. It’s a continuation in an uncertain world. All those years of holiday celebrations, dressing up for Halloween, coloring eggs for Easter, cooking turkeys for Thanksgiving, filling stockings for Christmas; they’re all ways to hold on to what we have, and what we want to remember and most of all what we want to pay forward into our lives.
Yesterday, I went and bought Halloween candy and filled our biggest bowl in anticipation of trick-or-treaters tonight. Last year, trick-or-treating was cancelled, thanks to the pandemic, but this year, we’re expecting at least the usual double handful of neighborhood and village kids. I picked up Martin while I was in Lund and brought him home with me, and he helped me decorate the foyer and the outside of the front door with spiderwebs and skeletons. I went back to Lund a few hours later and picked up Karin, who had taken the train home from Stockholm after a week working at a tradeshow there. The whole family together for the evening!
We ordered takeaway and after dinner, the kids carved the two big Halloween pumpkins, while I took bad photos of the process. Karin decided on a baby Yoda face for her pumpkin and printed out a template to use. Martin found a photo of a pumpkin carved with a cat against a moon and decided to do that freehand. Perfectly reflecting both kids! The pumpkins turned out great and we put lit candles in them and set them outside. Then we watched most of a movie before the kids decided to head back to town. They’re not home today, so it will be me handing out candy to anyone who comes to the door, with Anders’ help.
Karin and I carved a pumpkin last year, and the years before, when Martin wasn’t here, but I wonder how many more times we’ll carve pumpkins. We went to an adult Halloween party on Friday, Anders and I, and it was the first time I’d had to put together a costume in years. We still have a bag full of costumes, which is mostly hats, but we were able to find things that worked: Anders was a king in a royal robe and crown, and I found the viking costume I had made years ago when we went to a club Halloween party as a family of vikings. We only had one of the viking helmets left, and since it was one of the child-sized ones, it kept falling off if I didn’t turn it sideways so that I looked more like a viking unicorn.
Remembering all the family costumes we did over the years, when the kids were young, had me feeling very nostalgic. We did the Wizard of Oz, and the 3 Billy Goats Gruff (with Anders as a troll), and characters from Peter Pan, as well as the vikings and a royal family complete with a dragon. One year we were all Blue Genes/Jeans, which I thought was hilarious.
I hope this wasn’t the last year we carve pumpkins together. I’ll just have to make coming home to do it a tradition for my grown children to treasure, too.
