My First Halloween

In Fairbanks there was really only one neighborhood that had the density to support trick-or-treating: Hamilton Acres. The entire sprawling community of Fairbanks would descend upon this small neighborhood the night of October 31. At 20 below it was far too cold to walk the streets, so cars would line up along the streets at individual houses like a drive-thru. Each car pulling up to the driveway–kids sprinting to the door. Fearful of letting out their heat, homeowners would crack the door and fling out the candy, and quickly slam it shut. You had to gather the candy quickly as it would quickly freeze to the patio or get lost in the yard’s snow. (When summer came and thawed out the yard, tightly wrapped smarties and other candy were perfectly edible, preserved by the frozen winter. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and Snickers, though, not so much).

We didn’t spend a lot of time on our costumes either. A pitch-perfect rendition of Superman was lost unless everyone else had X-ray vision to see through your parka, snowpants, boots, gloves and hat. Its tough to strike fear in the hearts and minds of criminals as the Dark Knight when your grabbing fistfuls of candy through a mitten sown on to your sleeve by your Mom. Why the parents of Fairbanks just didn’t get together and decide to drop the pretense is beyond me. My friends and I would have been just as happy if my parents had turned out the lights in the living room and dropped a pile of smarties in the middle of the room and told us to wrestle over it.

So my Alaskan childhood is in stark contrast to the Oregonian celebration of Halloween. This year we learned that our new neighborhood takes Halloween very, very seriously. Our neighbors had elaborate decorations. Our immediate neighbor sprawled a 20 foot devil across two stories and arranged a graveyard, complete with full size mannequins (over 10!) decked in ghoulish garb. Though those neighbors took the cake, the entire neighborhood showed signs of the halloween spirit. As we walked the ‘hood on Halloween, we saw one house literally scare a kid from candy. The porch was decorated with such lifelike spiders and skeletons that the young boy–5 or 6 replete in a Superman costume–refused to go on the porch even with his Mom and the home-owners, arms stretched out beckoning with a bag of candy, pleading him to come up and take his treats. The kid just stood there, shaking his head, obviously thinking, “nope, this is far enough. That place looks crazy.”

I couldn’t have agreed more. That kid was learning the Alaskan way of Halloween: Treats don’t come easy.