First Halloween

 

This is how Charlie woke up this morning, happy as a clam. That is, until we forced him into the requisite baby pumpkin costume.

I wonder what babies think of this strange holiday where they are dressed in some crazy outfit and a parade of terrifying goblins and ghouls come to their door. Can you guess what Leah’s costume is this year? She’s “Where’s Waldo?” Halloween was always a huge deal in our house. My mother would get so into the holiday I’d start to wonder whether the medieval belief that redheads were witches was true. She would decorate every inch of our house and organize the spookiest Halloween party in the neighborhood. I especially remember her scaring the bejeesus out of me and my blindfolded friends by passing around disgusting human entrails such as cantaloupe “eyeballs” and cold spaghetti “veins.” Every year my mother delighted in becoming the ugliest witch possible. She’d spend days dying sheets black in huge pots and fashioning her putty nose, bushy eyebrows, and hairy moles.

Below is my mom before her transformation and then just after. How many times have you seen a witch making a business call? Notice the cigarette in her hand in both pictures—truly the spookiest thing of all considering she would eventually die of lung cancer.

 

We are bracing ourselves for a huge onslaught of trick-or-treaters tonight. Everyone knows by now that Kendall gives out full-size candy bars (she just bought 300 of them—oy!) so at this point I wouldn’t be surprised to see buses of costumed moppets unloading in front of our house.

Here is seven-year-old Leah following in her grandmother's bewitched footsteps. When we were little, we didn’t stop trick-or-treating until we had several grocery bags filled to the brim with candy. It's a wonder I have any teeth left. Luckily, Leah was always into the social aspects of Halloween more than the coma-inducing sugary ones. She recently wrote a post on her blog decrying the holiday for giving girls her age an excuse to dress inappropriately. Indeed, the Halloween party held at her school a few nights ago looked like a dress rehearsal for a Cecil B. DeMille production of “Sodom and Gomorrah.” Leah looked so innocent in her Waldo costume. Not that my actress daughter is incapable of looking far older than her 14 years. Yesterday she received her final lice treatment (talk about spooky ordeals!) which involved yet again forcing a tiny comb through her voluminous red curls. As a result, her hair transformed into a gigantic cumulous cloud of auburn frizz. Instead of freaking out about it, Leah did what any seasoned thespian would do. She slapped on some make-up, grabbed one of her mother's dresses, and organized an impromptu photo shoot. Is this supermodel below really the same little witch from a few years ago? Yikes!

 

Happy Halloween, kids. Save me the Butterfingers.

Comments

[leah]

love the post dad! really articulate!! xoxo

[Maria Sosa]

Okay first thing...Leah looks like your beautiful mom. 2nd thing...Charlie still looks like you. Isn't that the face you would make if we put you in a pumpkin suit?

I love Halloween too. Am I a heathen because I honestly think my fondest memories of my kids' childhood are from halloween? I'm not a very crafty cutie mom but I did Halloween up to the max too. We had Halloween parties every year for the kids and their friends. It always surprised me that nobody else in the neighborhood ever did. I have a traditional glow in the dark halloween t-shirt that I wore every year with a witch's hat. Don't know where the hat is but I've still got the t-shirt and am wearing it tonight. Fortunately, our new baltimore neighborhood is trick or treat heaven so I'm going to be in my element. Jordan, by the way, may have reached legal drinking age but part of the reason I'm feeling so full of halloween cheer is cause I spent the last week making him his Max costume so in that spirit...Let the wild rumpus start.

[maggie may]

Charlie is so fat and healthy!

And your daughter is a knockout.

[Julie R.]

Thanks for the "spirited" post! If we weren't 3000 miles away, my kids would be first in line for Kendall's full-size candy bars. We already went trick-or-treating at the mall and will go out again tonight.

I love the photos. Both kids look adorable in their costumes. But Leah's fashion shoot--wow! She looks stunning.

I hope you all have fun tonight!

[Catherine W]

You have such a beautiful family Danny!
All generations.
And I feel bad for giving out mean old little treat-size chocolates. I'll have to take a leaf from Kendall's book!

[Heather P.]

Leah is just BEAUTIFUL!!
And be sure to tell her I said so, teen age girls need to hear that as often as possible from everyone possible. And I so agree about the Sodom & Gomorrah aspect of this holiday! Little girls just aren't little for very long anymore, but I won't get on that soapbox here in your comments.
Charlie is just a doll baby!
Hope you have a Happy Halloween!

[Emily Barton]

Ohmigod! Lock your door to the onslaught of boys -- far scarier than the ghoulies and ghosties! Seriously, though, your daughter is stunningly beautiful.

[debbie rose galo]

danny
charlie is so adorable and wow leah is breathtaking in those pictures. she could be a model. and the pics of your mom bring backs suuuuuch memories. i still tell everyone about her being the witch, and absolutely didnt come back till we our bags were filmed to the brim. that was the best.isnt that picture of your mom on the phone in your dad's office on drake. and look at that big ashtray!!! amazing how thank G-d we dont see those in most homes anymore. the good old dayssss! ahhhhhh!!!

have a spook-tac-ular day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Helena]

Didn't your Mom once pretend to slash her wrists at the kitchen sink?

[Julie Levin Freireich]

I do remember the witch costume year after year Slashing her wrists? Do not remember that one or maybe I do not want to remember. Ewww.

[Danny]

The fake wrist-slashing was an April Fool's joke. Oy. Only ketchup was involved!

[Pam G]

I guess Charlie felt undignified in his pumpkin suit but so cute. Leah looks quite the actress with her dramatic hair! We've no young people in our immediate family any longer. I went "trick-or-treating" for beer with a bunch of grownups this year. Somehow it was just not the same as those kiddie parties of yore that you described that were a staple of my 1960s/70s youth.

[david]

Charlie is going to be mayor, of somewhere, someday. And Leah is and will be a star.

And we'll all say we knew you when!

[an ersatz Frenchwoman]

Your mother was beautiful. Your daughter is beautiful. Your wife is beautiful. Your son is beautiful. You are beautiful.

[Elaine Soloway]

Now I know where Susie gets her penchant for zany Halloween get-ups.

Hope you had a happy day!

xoxo
Fake Grandma

[Elise]

Awww, both Charlie and Leah look so cute in their costumes! Leah does look like quite the model in her photo shoot, and she certainly does seem to resemble her pretty grandmother.

Thank you for sharing your Halloween past and present! :)

[churlita]

I know everyone has already said it, but WOW! Leah looks amazing in those photos...And Charlie's not so bad himself. Happy belated Halloween!

[Annika]

You know, I thought for sure there was something in Kendall's book about full sized candy bars at Halloween, but a cursory browse turned nothing up. I need Command+F to work in hard cover. (Of course, I might very well be making it up.)

[elizabeth]

I'm sort of new to your blog -- have read it off and on for a while. I loved this post and the one after it -- the notions of children and their aging and all that is gained and all that is lost. I have a 14 year old daughter with severe special needs and am no stranger to the hard realization that she, too,is on her own journey.

Your children are both gorgeous -- the hair, the smiles-- wow!

[Elisabeth]

Good God, Danny, both of your children are absolutely beautiful. You can definitely be a very proud papa!

(my daughter had lice when she was about 10, and it was a nightmare. Lice, I read, are now getting resistant to products meant to kill them. It can't be good to use those products on kids either...)