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Halloween
Tradition #13 - After Halloween Ceremonies
With Halloween night over for another year, it
usually leaves us with quite a bit of stuff to store and put
away from next year. There are two things that we
always do on November 1st., no matter what. We have a Jack O' Lantern burial ceremony and
laying the Halloween Scarecrow to rest ritual (see Tradition
#4).
Putting Away The Halloween Scarecrow
For the Halloween Scarecrow, we take down
the post and remove the Scarecrow. We carry him back to the
garage and place him in his coffin and get him all settled
in for next Halloween. We
gather up all the tiki torches, empty them if needed and put them away for next
year. We usually just do this ourselves, my wife and I.
We've had so many parties, it's nice to do something for
just the two of us. After the Scarecrow is put away, we move
on to the Jack-O-Lanterns.
The
Jack-O-Lantern Burial
The day after Halloween usually
marks the death of most Halloween Jack-O-Lanterns and like any
corpse they begin to decay, draw flies, smell and rot very
quickly, depending on where you live. Unfortunately, we live
in a desert and it's still fairly warm during the day so
Jack-O-Lanterns tend to rot fast here. It seems so heartless and cruel to simply toss them
into a bag to be hauled off with the trash after they gave
us such joy with their ghostly light.
Those were our thoughts several
years ago when my wife and I were about to dispose of our
Jack O' Lanterns after Halloween night. Our solution to this
regrettable situation was to create a new family tradition
and provide them with a proper burial. In a small patch of
earth in our backyard, we dig a grave for our faithful
Jack-O-Lanterns. This seemed more fitting than throwing them in a
trash bag and sending them to the local land fill to rot,
wondering what they had done to displease us so. We get
attached to our creations every year, what can I say?
We picked a spot in our back
yard that was out of the way and unused, where they could go
back to the earth and maybe become a spot for planting
pumpkins the following year. After placing them into the
earth and covering them we give a short eulogy to show our
appreciation and respect. We each throw a handful of dirt on
them and then they are buried and a tombstone that we made
about 20 years ago is placed at the top of the mound. We
leave it there for a few days and then put that away as
well.
During the first week of
November, we take down the Halloween tree display and pack
it up. We take the wreath off the door, take any lights
down, and put away any Halloween decorations that aren't
left up year round. Yes, we do have some things that we keep
up all year long but, hey, we are the "Halloween People"
after all!
We clean and press the costumes,
and pack them up. We make sure that fog machines are emptied
if need be and that everything that goes into storage for
next Halloween is packed up and put away. It's kind of sad,
really. But, the Gods willing, there's always next year! |
