Twas the fright before Christmas

I used to love Christmas. I loved the build up, going into town to see the windows, decorating the tree, giving and getting presents, the food and the parties. Over time however, I find I go through all the traditions, but it seems to be fraught with obligation and a lot of the joy has been taken from it. We have a busy festive season, and I sometimes find myself juggling two simultaneous Christmas events for the kids, then racing home to get hurriedly dressed for an adult event. I should enjoy all this socialising but I get tired. I could say no, but then I feel mean if I deprive the children of their social occasion for the sake of my own.
Then there’s Christmas Day itself. We rush all over the countryside to accommodate both family events – a lunch and a dinner. Both families are fraught with a dysfunction (no different to any other family) that I find stressful – it’s a matter of waiting for someone to be unhappy about something, someone to throw out an unintended but hurtful barb, some minor drama to unfold.
I like to take the kids into town for the big city Christmas festivities, but we rush after school and in part, we see Santa to lock in the xmas wishes.
I know all those things are not the actual reason for Christmas, but for those of us secular types, that is the celebration, all those Christmas traditions. I also dare anyone to try saying to their family "We won't come to lunch because we're only going to celebrate the birth of Christ". Even the most committed Christian grandparent would probably not be happy with that.
All of the obligation and minor pressure is why Halloween has far eclipsed any other celebration as my favourite. It’s all the good things of Christmas without the bad. I decorate the house – it takes a few days to get everything up, as over the last ten years I've amassed quite a collection of display materials. I order in the USA seasonal candy – so we have ‘special’ festive food. I have a big party, where I invite my friends and their children (if they have them), and there is no obligation or expectation ruling who I must celebrate with or what I must do. We get to dress up, as we like – and it’s fun. The kids are so excited, but without any greed (well, maybe a little, for the ton of candy but it’s more about the decorations and the carving of the pumpkin and planning of elaborate costumes).
We read Halloween stories nightly for the two weeks leading up to it (the wonderful Judy Sierra's works are my favourite), craft activities revolve around making decorations for the party. Selecting the pumpkin has become a tradition like going off to find a tree was in my youth. We drive around the week before singing along to Halloween songs. My three year old is delighting in all the light up, moving, singing, dancing ornaments that are appearing around the house.
However, I’m the one who is most excited – the whole extravaganza is driven by my enthusiasm for the event. And I guess that’s the indicator of my own dysfunction. It’s my gift to me, as Christmas and birthdays seem to have become about pleasing everybody else. For me it’s like the Christmas of my childhood, where it’s festive and fun, and purely about enjoyment.
To all the anti-Halloweeners, who see a decorated house and complain we are taking on American traditions, consider the possibility that there may be more to it than that. Perhaps it’s reclaiming the lost joy of celebration for the sake of enjoyment and pleasure, that the commercialism of Christmas has stolen.
So Happy Halloween to you all – I’m off to stencil ghosts onto the grass.

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