La noche de las brujas

Every Halloween, for a while now, I don my fabulous black witch's hat, complete with a tall, pointy peak and a mysterious veil decorated with fake spiders and cobwebs. The hat boasts a huge, black spider with red eyes at its very center, just where the peak begins to rise. It's very creepy, and I adore it.

It's the kind of hat that has sent toddlers running and sobbing away from me every Halloween I've worn it, which always leads my husband to grouse about the hat being so scary to little kids. But that's the point, right? No pun intended, of course.

This Halloween was no different. A blond, all-decked-out-in-a-black-cape, complete with widow's peak, Dracula didn't want to approach me until I lifted the veil and promised him that I was a good witch, who didn't eat children, just candy. Then a big smile broke on his face and he came eagerly forward to get his share of a bounty that never runs out and saddles us with pounds of candy we don't need or really even want to eat. I think I'll definitely have to scale down my candy purchases next year, even though at least 50 kids came by this time around.

The toddler child of a neighbor also refused to come near me until I took the hat off and assured her it was me, the neighbor she's seen so many, many times before. After she'd taken her candy, I asked her whether I could put my hat back on, and she said, very firmly, "No."

I love giving out candy to the kids and trying to guess what their different get ups are. This year I fared much better than in the past when I would incur a kid's contempt by totally misidentifying their disguise.

"You're a Ninja Turtle!" I would exclaim confidently.

"No, I'm a Commando 20," or some such thing, the offended child would say as he huffed away with his candy.

"You're a beautiful princess," I would try again, with some gauzily decked-out child.

"No, I'm a vampire queen," the umbraged girl would retort.

Today my biggest mistake was guessing that a Goth-looking girl was a vampire princess before she corrected me to say that she was actually a punk rocker.

"Well, many punk rockers want to be vampire princesses," I mused to myself.

My mom, who visits me every year for my birthday and Halloween, always notes that I enjoy the holiday more than the kids do, and I think that's probably true. I just love being out there with my witch's hat on Halloween and I enjoy the innocence of the children and the fun they seem to have. I remember loving Halloween ever since I was a child, though hard as I try I can't remember any Halloween of mine, except perhaps the one or two when I got a second birthday celebration for reasons I can't remember.

Today's trick-or-treating at day's end was a fitting conclusion to a crazy busy week and to an even crazier busier day when almost every moment was taken up by a meeting with a student, with colleagues or with teaching class. Earlier during the day, the tiny town held its annual Halloween Parade, which I've heard is famously cute. So I entreated my husband to take my mom while I was teaching and to take some pictures.

This great parade of ghouls is the perfect photo to capture the spirit of the day, no pun intended either. (Tomorrow, my abuelita would've turned 98. Feliz cumpleaños, abuelita. If tonight is the night when spirits get to be abroad for a while, I hope you get to feel how much I miss and love you.)

As for Halloween, one more has passed and it's always a little sad when I have to put away my witch's hat and my electric Great Pumpkin for another year, and it will be a little sad tomorrow when the cool pumpkin my husband carved up like a hatcheted head will be split and thrown into the woods to become fodder for hungry critters.

But that's the coolest thing about Halloween. Like my birthday, I hope to be able to enjoy it each and every year, for as long as I live.