Halloween AmeriFesties

October 31st, a day for which Americans spent almost 1 billion dollars more than just last year on - up to 7.4 billion - and a day on which almost half the country chooses to don an alter ego and gets to scarf down the majority of their annual sugar intake in one night, and you would suppose that as a group working with tons of kids, we'd have a lot going on.

Well, you'd suppose right. 

Our last Open Gym that week fell on Wednesday the 29th and so the festivities started. Even though we had no intention of going all-out, I managed to concoct a pseudo-party. There was no hope of gathering the kids into scheduled groups for games but at the last minute, the Packwood Grocery had been kind enough to donate bags of Reeses and each kid got one for participating in a game. We had 'Pin the bow tie/heart/sunglasses' on the Skelleton, Pumpkin-shaped bean bag toss, and various masks for the kids to pose with. However, I was pleased to find that the biggest hit was the craft project I'd found: Mason Jar Halloween Luminaries. For a bulk of the evening, I was glued to the front of the gym, running between games and setting kids up with glue and tissue paper to make glowing pumpkin faces (and one lone Frankenstein). Kerissa and I dished out homemade treats for snack and kids came by the table here and there to decorate ghosts and other spooky cut-outs that I'd scattered about. I wasn't expecting to see many kids in costume since they usually come straight from school but I still wanted to get festive. I'd decided last minute to be a Pheonix and between some fiery-colored clothing I had, some red fabric and a makeshift mask, I pulled of an incomplete version for the evening.

But the big night was Friday. After our team meeting in Morton, our group spent the afternoon decking out the teen center in streamers and webs, dispersing our endless supply of candy around the room and wreaking havoc on the computer room to fit the bill for the setting of a Zombie Apocalypse. We had originally planned to go wild with games and haunts until we heard tell of a town-wide "Zombie Apocalypse" game being hosted by the math teacher of the school. Most of the kids would (understandably) be opting for that as the night's feature event and so we partnered up to act as a Safe Haven for humans and a place where unfortunate zombified victims could have a chance of resurrection via solving riddles. It was a huge success. The team was decked out in their costumes (I'd added a beautiful plume of feathers on my "cape" and replaced my mask with Ariella's amazing face-painting skills) but we were no match for some of the ensembles that strolled through our doors. One of our kids dressed up so convincingly as a woman that it took many of us a good deal of time to realize who it was. Another was made up as a cow after accepting a hand-me-down suit from his great Aunt. We saw Bacon, the queen of hearts, a couple of hand-sewn Elsa costumes, Buzz Lighyear, and dozens of other intricate designs. Two teen girls brought in their make-up sets and hosted a face-painting booth while we ran around between zombie games, coming up with riddles for the desperate player, and nibbling on our wide array of treats here and there. Part way through the night, those of us at the teen Center took shifts to break and go across the street to the Haunted House that the Fire Hall was hosting. It was surprisingly well-done, leading us through pitch black, disorienting hallways and into psychedelic, topsy-turvy rooms of fading sanity. A couple of the teammates had volunteered themselves and put on some stellar performances.

Photo Credit to Katy Nevinsky

After all was said and done, the team went from play-at-work to more play. Back at the Cispus house, we had our own celebration complete with music, dance, our own poisonous concoctions and some costume alterations. I dipped out on the earlier end, feeling pretty fulfilled with the celebrations. 

As the evening had started that night, I noticed that I got the most enjoyment from watching the parade of characters pass by our windows and come through our doors. In the mess of life, Halloween has become less interesting to me. But that night, I realized that just because I don't take time to go all-out any more, doesn't mean I've lost an appreciation for it. As we left the teen center that night, I had no longing to be one of the kids strolling around the streets, but I had a huge smile on my face for the sight of those still out late into the night, living a different life for that moment. In so many places, Halloween has adopted so many rules and regulations that it is no longer an escape. Trick-or-treat usually has to be wrapping up by sundown and school teachers never draw an affiliation to the holiday. In a town where so many kids deal with less-than-ideal lives, it was nice to see that they could still immerse themselves in this one.