Halloween

“There are so many times when genuine human service means giving graciously our little grain of sand, placing it reverently to build the beach of brotherhood. We get no receipt, and our little grain of sand carries no brand; its identity is lost, except to the Lord” -Elder Neal A. Maxwell 1997 

 Halloween is a holiday that has defiantly evolved over the years. The way the little boys celebrate is completely different then how the older kids celebrated when we were little. For the older kids we would be planning our costumes from the beginning of the school year. Mom would make them every year. And we always had the coolest costumes. Such as a sandwich, or a toilet, my bee costume was pretty great as well. I think my favorite was the year I went as a baby. Brother J remembers that in first grade he was a very cool vampire and he had so much makeup on his face that he couldn’t drink the witches brew at school (how very sad). These are things that the older kids remember but now, it is scrounge up what ever you can find out of the already ripped apart costume closet. Of course, we can still come up with alright costumes due to the fact that mom has TONS of costumes down there in the boxes. Halloween when we were young meant not only lots of make up and elaborate costumes but it also meant trips to Grandma and Grandpa’s houses to show them what wonderful costumes we had come up with. I think that was the highlight of my Halloween when I was little. Now the kids go trick-or-treating at Daddio’s work. They get all dressed up and right after school they head on over to Daddio’s office and they go from one desk to the next desk and Daddio introduces them to everyone and then they get candy. They normally get just as much candy doing that as they get out trick-or-treating around the neighborhood later that day. When Brother J, Brother B and I were young, it was a grand prize to get a mini candy bar, most of the stuff we got were Tootsie Rolls, Pixie Stix and Smarties. Now the younger kids are counting how many full size candy bars they get. This past Halloween I was living at home for the first time in four years during Halloween. Brother J had moved to Colorado with His new Wife; Brother B was going to a party at the Institute; I was going to a party at the Y for my club. Rosalie was up at USU. Brother N was going on a date. Brother D was going to some sleepover. This left Mom, Dad, and Brother C home and there stood Mom cooking a huge pot of chili!!! I asked Mom why she was bothering, after all no one was going to be home. I had never even seen Mom make chili. Brother N, Brother D, and Brother C all looked at me really funny and said, “It wouldn’t be Halloween without chili! We always have chili on Halloween!” WHAT? I had never even heard of such a thing. But apparently, things had changed since I last lived at home. It is good to see that traditions don’t just die out, that new ones are started. I was beginning to feel bad for all the little boys because we older kids had so many great things when we were young, and nothing was left for them, but Mom and Daddio are so amazing they keep things exciting for the little boys as well.

 Another tradition that has been on going, and I hope doesn’t die is trick-or-treating for cans of food for the Utah Food Bank. This started when Mom told me that I was too old to go trick-or-treating. I think I was in seventh or eighth grade, but Mom promises I was in ninth (but this doesn’t matter, Brother D is in ninth and he is still trick-or-treating) at any rate, I wasn’t allowed to go any more and I thought this was a BAD idea. So I thought, and thought, and thought. . . I don’t’ know if it was I or Mother that came up with it, but instead I went out and trick-or-treated for cans of food for the Utah Food Bank. I just walked up to people’s doors and said, “Hi, I am trick-or-treating for cans of food for the Utah Food Bank. Do you have any cans of food you would like to donate?” I would pull a wagon behind me. And I did pretty good my first year. Not only did I get lots of cans but people thought I was so nice they would dump their entire bowl of candy in my bag; I think I got more candy then any of the younger kids that year. After that people started counting on me coming they had bags already ready. It got to be a big deal we would have large parties and get hundreds of pounds of food. Rosalie did it after I did and so did Brother N. Someone in our family has done this for the last eight years. I hope this continues (hint, hint, hint, Brother D  and Brother C!). 

Halloween has not only changed for us but it has changed for Mom and Daddio too. Daddio use to hate Halloween. He didn’t like getting in costumes and he especially didn’t like the make up, it was his least favorite holiday. Now that he has kids he thinks it is fun. For Mom she remembers that everyone in elementary school had the really cheap store bought costumes, they were really ugly. But her mom would never buy them, she insisted on her coming up with her own, (this seams vaguely familiar). Mom thought that it was because her mother was cheap (this too seams familiar). Mom was always very jealous of the kids in the store bought costumes (this is familiar as well). When she got older she realized that her costumes were always much cooler than everyone else’s, which is why all this story seams familiar because that is why we never had store bought costumes and they were all homemade. But it is this that built Mom’s love for finding creative costumes and why we have enough to supply the road shows for church, all the kids for pioneer trek, as well as all our cousins for Halloween. 

Grandma and Grandpa Strong told me about Halloween when they were young. It sounded very similar to what we did. They went trick-or-treating, they got things like candy, nuts, popcorn balls, taffy, peanuts and apples. Grandpa said they would get so much stuff a sack would never do they would have to bring a pillow case to carry everything. Grandma said that when she was young they would cover the entire town, unlike the kids now who just go up and down a couple streets. Grandma says she doesn’t really remember getting dressed up, mostly she would go to parties with the kids her age at school. They had parties for everything, any excuse to get together and throw a party was a good excuse to throw a party. Grandpa on the other hand remembers dressing up like a girl with all his buddies. He said their costumes were so good, no one believed they were really guys! Can you imagine Grandpa Strong dressed as a girl!?!