Bram Stoker and Candy Corns

It's funny how you don't even realize how many family traditions you have until you move away from home. At least, that's been the case for me. We had a perfect, motion-picture-worthy Autumn day here a little over a week ago, and everything about it-- the colors of the turning trees, the overcast lighting, the crisp chill of the air tickling my skin, the smell of wet leaves on the ground, the sound of their squish as I walked over them in my boots, and the cozy confines of a coat and scarf, all shot me with thrilling ease back into the days of past Halloweens and Thanksgivings. The Holiday season is beginning! It's been my favorite time of year for as long as I can recall. The season starts off with my dad's birthday in September and rolls on from there with one family birthday (including my own) after another, mixed in with the best of the holidays. But I have to confess, I've been dreading this joyous time for the past few months. This is the time of family and memories. How can it possibly roll forth without my Risa?

So when I felt the familiar holiday spirit bubbling up in my gut last week without hesitation, I confess it took me by surprise. I ran with the feeling as easily as a piece of straw runs with a river current. Using the spare change in the bottom of my purse, I picked up some little pumpkin candy dishes from the DI and filled them with candy corns.

Then I bought some window crayons and went wild decorating my front window for Halloween. I draped a ribbon made from a pumpkin-patterned fabric over my entryway door frame and perched a dollar-store Dracula figurine on top of the VCR. It seemed that every cheap decoration brought to mind more memories of traditions I'd always taken for granted back home. Like mom's fun Halloween picture books: Cinderella Skeleton and Frank Was a Monster Who Wanted to Dance and Frankenstein Makes a Sandwhich, that sit on the coffee table every year. And the stuffed black cat with the gangly limbs that perches on the piano.

All of the decorations and do-dads gathered over the years from seasonal bazaars and craft stores that I was used to pulling out in the month of October. I miss them all so terribly now. Not so much for what they are, but for the memories behind them. I remember pulling them out of the attic this time last year with Risa. She was much lighter than I, so she braved the broken ladder in my parents' bedroom and passed down the Halloween boxes to me. I can still recall the smell of them-- the smell of rubber masks and tangled wig hairs stuck to old, sticky candy. How we giggled! It never got old, year from year, pulling the decorations from each box and saying, "Oh yeah, remember this?!" and then finding a place to put it.My roommates were all off at school and work as I decorated the apartment. I felt so lonely, missing Risa and thinking back on our last Halloween together. But then I put on some fun Halloween music (thank you Michael Jackson and Tim Burton for your contributions) and cheered up and let myself enjoy this college experience. I even went to the library and checked out my favorite picture books that mom has back home and set them on my little apartment coffee table. And then I checked out Walt Disney's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (another family tradition) and invited some friends over to watch it with me on Sunday night. Then I went to the library again and checked out Bram Stoker's Dracula-- a classic read for this time of year.

It's been great fun, inviting friends and neighbors to draw something on the window when they come over. So, the moral of the story is... just because things are different, it doesn't mean they can't still be fun. :)

(And yes, the "S" is backwards. YOU try writing on the inside and making it look right!)