Day of the Dead

In Mexico and elsewhere, Dia de Muertos is celebrated on October 31, November 1, and November 2. The Western Christian version, Allhallowtide, incorporates All Saints' Eve, All Saints' Day, and All Souls' Day. (In the Catholic Church, All Saints' Day was a "holy day of obligation," meaning we had to go to church on that day. Buzzkill after all that candy.) The origins of Day of the Dead involve honoring the dead by graveyard visits, dining on muertos (bread of the dead) and sugar skulls, and using marigolds to summon the spirits.

So I'm posting this on Halloween night, a holiday that at one time had some meaning to me. But there are no trick-or-treaters here where I am living, and consequently, there is a dearth of sugar skulls in my home. There is, however, a bottle of merlot. Make due with what you have.

The first Halloween I can recall was when I was four. I don't remember what my costume was. What I do remember is that my trick-or-treat bag was made of paper. (This was long before the plastic pumpkins which are now clogging our oceans.) Being four, I wasn't very tall. Consequently, my paper bag dragged on the gravel, eventually putting a hole in it and dispensing all my hard-earned candy in the streets. Why my father didn't realize this puzzles me to this day. Upon returning home and opening my empty bag, I howled like a Halloween ghost. (Oh! That was probably my costume! A white pillowcase with holes cut out for eyes!) My mother made my sister share her candy with me, which explains in part why she always considered me a pain-in-the-butt kid sister.

Once I was old enough to go trick-or-treating without parental accompaniment, I paired up with my best friend, Peggy. We always made our own costumes. One of our favorites was that of a "two-headed lady," which involved sharing a large coat of Peggy's mom's. We thought we were so clever . . . until people started referring to us as "Siamese twins," a label that befuddled us, as we had no idea what a "Siamese twin" was. We quickly got tired of arguing about it, though, and just took the candy and left.

When I became a parent, Halloween evolved from an excuse to party and drink too much beer to one of being a responsible adult, shepherding my offspring through my old neighborhood, ignoring their whining, and finding joy in the oohs and ahhs of the old ladies who now occupied the homes on my old street. It was a tedious exercise, but I embraced it in the spirit of tradition. And of course, I made my kids' costumes. One of my favorites was when they went as a fruit salad: Katrina was purple grapes, Jenna was a strawberry, and Sam was a banana. Scary, huh? (They did evolve into pirates and witches and hippies as they got older.)

And now, for me, Halloween is a nothing-burger. And I'm okay with that. There's that bottle of merlot I mentioned and my Bose is playing Day of the Dead, an "epic tribute to the music and artistry of the Grateful Dead."

Hang it up and see what tomorrow brings.