It’s no secret that I LOVE Halloween.

We spend weeks decorating. Seriously, I used to control myself until October 1st, now it’s back to school and get out the Halloween boxes. I actually spin the spider webs on my porch like a spider would. It takes me hours. I don’t even think Martha Stewart does THAT! Ok, she does, but mine ARE SERIOUSLY way MORE BETTER!  I have more backlights than a LSD den in 1972. I broke my arm hanging Halloween decorations and that has still never stopped me though everyone yelling at me to get off the ladder gets annoying. OK. I know they just care.

We have a huge party. Our “garage” is now, twice as big and is no longer a garage. It’s the “Black Light Bar”. I even took off the two days before the party so I can get everything done in time. The party is so damn good, if I don’t say so myself, that last year’s party got press coverage. ( starts on page 36..hate these online “pages” bad SEO!!) I think that is proof of a good party when you get the cover of your country’s newest magazine. Yeah, full color glossy. That’s me in the red tights.

Now the funny thing is; I like Halloween as a kid, but not like this. And then, I’m really NOT in Horror flicks, zombie invasions, blood and gore or whatever else makes one a Halloween freak. I liked vampires good enough. Loved myself the 1979 version of Dracula with Frank Langella and read most of the Anne Rice Lestat series, but I hate Twilight and don’t do any of the vampire TV shows.

Plastic Costume Trauma

Now, the one thing I can say is that I do recall HATING my 2nd grade plastic out of the box witch costume. I’m pretty sure THAT is the culprit! However, I blocked most of it out. I know it was plastic and it made me itch.
And so, I have ALWAYS hand sewn my kids elaborate Halloween costumes. Ok not EVERYEAR..but most years of the time. And I have a slight clothing obsession, and a big attic to store great things I find so lots of people call me when they need to dress up as something. Maybe in another life I would have been a costume designer.

But, the costumes have even taken the back seat now. It’s the overall décor of the whole house. Seriously, the new paint colors that I am planning for the living room have Halloween in mind. As in, it will look really good at Halloween AND match the couch? Bonus!

So for years, what I have said about our growing Halloween obsession is that it is that time of the year that I get back to my roots and allow my inner Goth chick to come out. Thought of it as a natural predisposition to all things black, a bit morbid, I like bats and skulls, it’s my DNA?

I have a whole method to my decorating. First I do the front porch. Get out the standard tombstones, the bodies, the creepy baby doll, the back “curtains”. Then I do the lights and I weave the webs and finish up with the bats, etc. Next, starts the garage as that is covered and protected from the elements. The garage takes a bit as this year I had to finish painting the walls and the freezer. We now have a huge free standing freezer that was WHITE. I painted that too. And then I bedazzled my freezer.  I love being able to say that. “I bedazzeled my freezer!” And then I put on the glow in the dark paint. It’s not a freezer anymore. It’s a coffin! That will hold lots of booze!

I still have to electrify the whole back yard and web it. ANd we have to finish the bloody dance floor  and put up the 10 x 20 food tent. And then we have to do all the cooking. Lot’s of things like “Baked Brains” and “Gobin Puke Stew”, “Sewer Water”, “Bloodytinis”, and “Sticky Bat Wings”. You get the idea.

My Halloween Adoption Revelations

So about two weeks ago, I was working in the garage, as I have now for weeks, and I am thinking about my insanity at Halloween.

And it occurs to me that Halloween and the obsession that comes with it is kind of a distraction. I get completely into it, but right after Halloween is..NOVEMBER. Not just the Season of Max, but also the media frenzy of Adoption Awareness Month. So what DOES Halloween do? Probably the same job as gardening and bluestone. Keeps adoption off my brain. SO I process that and I decide that it’s OK. Not an unhealthy way of dealing with my darkest month of the year, my “Gotcha Day” and all the anniversary reliving that birthmothers do whether we want to or not.

And, then, I think it a step further. Let’s tie the two together.

I regress at Halloween to my 16 year old self: I live in my full Goth glory. The person I WAS before adoption entered my life. And then, I relive the experience every November. The trauma that separated me from my baby and began the path that I walk now.

I’m not sure how healthy that really is. Just as I am not sure how healthy it was for me to baby sit and teach nursery school immediately after relinquishment and torture myself reading “Where the Wild Things Are” to kids the same age as my relinquished son. Just as I am pretty sure it as not healthy to make Garin wear a Max/Wolf suit when he was five. In fact, I think that was kind of sick looking back now especially since he HATED it and look miserable. Not one  of my finer mothing moments. Sorry Garin, but this one is DEFINATLY adoption related trauma!

But for whatever reason, it is something that I have to do.

And so, consider yourself, oh faithful reader, both invited to the party of the year and have yourself a Happy Halloween.  I leave you this: My Halloween wish for my dear beloved adoptees..all of you..wearing your wolf suits among the wild things.

Feel free to share the Pumpkin pic..I reliquish all my rights to it it! Freely this time and without any coersion should you adopt my pumpkin!!