When I emptied my mailbox on October 14th, I was elated to see my grandmother’s annual Halloween card inside. The card was adorable, with a picture of a kitten in a knitted pumpkin hat adorning the front, and a message inside wishing a Happy Halloween to the “sweetest pumpkin in the patch!” But as I sat there with the card, I noticed the envelope was postmarked on October 1st. I smiled because that is so like my grandmother. Halloween has always been a season for her, starting October 1st and going on until Halloween (her favorite holiday). She’s celebrated it this way since I was a baby.
That postmark caught me off guard. I thought, How is it already halfway through October? I had so many autumn plans with my friends, yet we’ve done almost nothing with school, and we’ve wasted away our time. When I was younger, time felt so slow; I was so aware of the month, the season. But I realize, this wasn’t accidental; my grandmother made time intentional through celebrating the seasons. Though Halloween is her favorite, she did this with all the seasons.
Heralding Halloween
“Halloween is better than Christmas,” she once told me. She loves the creepy, the scary, the freaky. If it weirds others out, she’s enamored. Christmas is too conventional. By mid-September every year, she had the plan for her big outdoor Halloween display already prepared. Though she would buy and prepare everything in advance, the decorations never went out a day early. “September is for back to school,” she’d argue. October is for Halloween.
By October 1st, her small townhouse became a haunted house. Orange, black, and purple became the dominant hues, pumpkins and skeletons stole every free corner, and the Halloween advent calendar adorned the wall, filled with candy for all 31 days. Best of all, the giant skeleton display went up, incredibly detailed and mildly terrifying to the neighbouring children. My favorite year was the Skeleton Rock band.
Halloween was the culmination of a month-long excitement. My family never went trick-or-treating in our own neighborhood because it was Grandma’s holiday. We showed up early, dressed in our costumes for photos, ate her famous Halloween chili, and ran around the neighborhood until our bags were bursting with candy. When we came back, we would run the ‘drive-through window’ at her door, handing out treats to the long lines of kids that formed there until the streets were quiet and dark.
Once the festivities were over, Halloween complete, and October passed, she took the decorations down. By November 1st, little remained of Halloween. Thanksgiving decorations, autumnal tones, and turkeys galore then took over the spaces. And thus the cycle repeated: every month, a new season; every day, intentional and celebrated.
Time, Mystical Time
I’ve recalled these memories to compare them with how my time moves now. Recently, days have become tasks to be completed, so I can finish the week. Weeks measure when my assignments are due, and when my breaks will be. Week two this semester was a milestone to my week six vacation. Week six marked the halfway point of semester one. I realized the extent of my madness when I calculated that getting to week six meant I was five-sixteenths of my way through university. I forced myself to stop. When did time become only a means to an end, not an intentional season, a slow celebration?
Losing time is the common plight of university students. It’s so easy to get caught up in planning and long-term thinking that you forget to pause and appreciate the moment. I know I have been so worried about classes next semester and jobs next summer that I almost forgot it was autumn, and time for Halloween! I don’t even have a costume!
These reflections on the Halloweens of my childhood have made me realize that I want to enjoy what’s left of this spooky season and slow down for the rest of the semester. I want November to be November, not just a means to December and my flight home.
I don’t want to miss any more of this special time that is university because I know how fast four years go by. Every day is a new memory, a celebration, a time to be savored. Whoever created that lovely idiom “stop and smell the roses” might just have been onto something. Right now, I need to stop and smell the pumpkin spice.