You’re never too old for Halloween.
It’s a fun fall festivity that should continue long after our toddlers have flown the nest.
Life brings many challenges–disease, financial difficulties–and the best way to counteract all this doom and gloom is with a boo!
Our elders really get a kick out of Halloween. They love to see the kids dress up and enjoy handing out candy, or at least watching the parade of adorable angels, fairies, pirates, and ghosts walk by.
So go to a little trouble. Why?
You argue that you’ve got enough to do being mom or dad’s daughter/son–and caregiving?
Because you need to play, to smile, and to take a break. You give your elder such a gift to loosen up every once in a while, help them remember a special time–as a child or as a parent–and to reconnect on a totally different level than pills and doctor appointments.
Easy Ways to Enjoy the Fall and Halloween Season:
- Pick up a pumpkin at the grocery store. Even if you don’t cut it, it’s still pretty sitting on the front porch.
- Decorate your house with a few spooky bats. Use some black construction paper or even use some purple, red, or green wrapping paper–who says bats have to be black?
- Hang a ghost from a tree–all you need is a sheet and two black eyes and some string.
- Buy a witch’s hat at a discount store and walk around with a broom and cackle. Your mom or dad will perk up, I promise, if you greet them with their afternoon meds as a witch!
- Splurge on a little Halloween candy. Get something your mom or dad can eat. A couple of marshmallow pumpkins won’t hurt anything. We all have a sweet tooth–at any age. My mom had a thing for Little Debbie snacks–and I couldn’t help but let her enjoy herself with a couple of swiss cake rolls every once in a while.
- Plan ahead, bundle up your senior, and either sit outside or near the front door and pass out candy.
- Light some candles or even string a few Christmas lights around your door–you can leave them up for the next two months and they give off a nice glow.
- Make it a point to meet a few of your neighbors. If you don’t know your neighbors, you need to–and what better way to strike up a conversation than over a cup of hot cider or commenting on how cute their kids are.
- Do you know that young couples miss their grandparents and would love a surrogate grandpa or grandmother for their kids to look up to?
- Let your mom or dad be the candy passer-outer. That will allow them to see the children’s costumes and they’ll enjoy the festivities.
- Consider renting a oldie–but goodie. How about the Bride of Frankenstein–or the old Dracula? If you mom or dad don’t seem to be up for being frightened, then try a little Planet Earth–the one about all the bats in the caves of Mexico scared me more than any scary movie ever could! For a G-rated film, try Charlie Brown’s Halloween Special.
- Make a pot of veggie soup–or chili. Mix up some cornbread and enjoy the fall chill in the air.
- If you’re near your grandkids, then consider going to their house and enjoying the fun. This is how you make family memories–and it’s worth the trouble.
Many elders have shared with me that it’s sad for them to not feel a part of life, to not participate in parties or events because people think they’re too old, and they aren’t interested in “that sort of thing” any more. That’s simply not true! If you liked parties when you were younger, you still like parties at any age!
Even if they don’t act like they’re enjoying themselves, they might be and just not able to show it. Besides, you need a little pick-me-up as well. Participate in the season’s activity’s for yourself. You still need to be engaged in life.
I read this great short story once about a daughter who took her mom, who had Alzheimer’s, to a Halloween party. Her mom loved it–and totally got into the masks and charades and felt free–not to have to be one person or another–to be concerned with knowing someone, recognizing someone. For Halloween night, she could be anybody she wanted.
I have a favorite Halloween memory of my mom and I. It’s a bit unusual since I grew up in a strict religious household–my mom was a minister–so you don’t exactly think they’d buy into the whole Halloween thing, but she did. I’m glad she didn’t take it too serious because to this day, I still love to dress up.
I hope you enjoy this excerpt from my forthcoming memoir, SAID CHILD, which is the prequel to Mothering Mother. It’s about being adopted at age four, and my search for my birth family–and how I learned to love both my adoptive and birth family.
This excerpt is about my favorite Halloween memory:
Daddy had been in the hospital for back surgery on Halloween when I was about eight or nine years old. It was an especially cold Georgia Halloween night and I fidgeted beside his hospital bed, tired of coloring and wanting to go home and get on my fairy costume and go trick-or-treating. By the time Mama and I kissed Daddy goodbye and we made it out of the hospital and hit the cold night air of the parking lot, I realized it was long since dark. The cold bit into my chest.
“Don’t worry, I have an idea,” she said as she walked a little faster.
We hurried home and I moped around, standing on the heater grate, curling my sock feet over the metal edges for warmth. Mama burst out of her bedroom,
“Count to one hundred, and then come knock on my bedroom door.”
What was she up to? I did as I was told.
“Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred.” Knock, knock.
Mama cracked open the bedroom door. She peeked out with a sheet over her head,
“Ohhh!” She moaned like a ghost. I squealed and giggled.
“I am a Halloween ghost!” she said in a low voice spooky voice. “Would you like some candy, little girl?”
I ran and got my orange plastic pumpkin bucket and thrust it toward the door. Mama dumped in a handful of Bit-O-Honey candies. She leaned down and whispered for me to count to one hundred again with my eyes closed, and then go to the bathroom door and knock. She motioned for me to turn away as she ran to the next room.
Mama opened the bathroom door wearing Daddy’s trench coat and hat and a mustache she must have drawn on with her eyebrow pencil. I laughed until I fell down and then held out my plastic pumpkin as she emptied Bazooka bubble gum into it.
We ran from room to room and each time Mama appeared as a new character—a maid with apron and spoon in the kitchen, a lady in a evening gown and fancy hat in the closet, a little girl with curlers in her hair and a teddy bear when she emerged from my room.
Mama wasn’t so boring after all. As regular as a clock, she kept my childhood in order. She made sure I scrubbed under my fingernails and practiced my times tables. But she was also a mother capable of a surprise or two–especially on Halloween.
***
Happy Halloween–Get out and Greet Your Neighbors!
Author of Mothering Mother
Family Advisor at Caring.com
