Halloween Eve
On Chelsea West Hill
By Emily Marshia

Last night I lay in bed, planning the sequence of our family’s Halloween evening. Now those who live in bustling downtown villages or even actual neighborhoods would have to map a complicated route by which to hit every house during trick-or-treating. Often those kids' treat bags are simply not large enough to hold all the goodies.

But, you see, last night I was taking the time to plot our evening for the opposite reason. Our neighborhood is comprised of so few houses, spread so far apart, that trick-or-treating has never been a walking affair. I am raising my three children in the house where I was raised and so each year around this time, I am reminded of the tradition of my mother or father loading my two brothers and me in the car and driving us from house to house "around the block," (mind you that this term takes on a very loose meaning on Chelsea West Hill).

Since my kids are still pretty little (and I still have the crazy notion that I can limit their intake of sweets this time of year), we visit only four houses for trick-or-treating: two sets of dear neighbors, my parents, and my brother and sister-in-law. So why all the planning?

Since each household has come to expect this as a yearly visit and they know that we are not in the business of knocking on dozens of doors, our time in each house is just that—a visit.

There is time allowed for consuming a few morsels, stripping of outerwear to unveil the costumes, pictures, a few more morsels, perhaps a book or toothbrush or toys (I’ve trained these people well and they are getting pretty creative with alternative treats!), a bathroom break, another morsel, and catching up on the latest tall tales since the last time they saw my kids (since burping accidentally and moaning like a sick walrus came into fashion).

This year all three of them are wearing some form of wings, so there will also be additional time repositioning the glittery branches of a butterfly, ladybug, and Tinkerbell each time we exit the vehicle.

Missing Out?

When I was young, my friends in the village always quizzed me as to why I didn’t just have my parents drop me off downtown for trick-or-treating. As we got older and they were into egging and toilet-papering houses and cars, there was no way my parents even considered that an option. But I don’t remember ever feeling like I was missing something.

Halloween was the one night a year when the disconnected, crooked roads that guided my childhood bike rides became a neighborhood. I remember Mrs. Sprague’s popcorn balls and my grandmother’s full size Snickers bars. I remember seeing old men and women’s faces light up as my brothers and I stepped into their kitchens. I remember nights that were so cold, we wore our snowsuits under our costumes and welcomed the warmth of a treat-giver’s woodstove as we lingered inside to remind them what grade we were presently in.

Many of those old faces no longer live in those old houses. Many of those houses no longer stand. No one makes popcorn balls anymore either, but at least I know that if one of our four stops offered us a homemade treat, I could accept it in a heartbeat.

Some of those same childhood friends, I’m sure, wonder why I have chosen to make life harder. Halloween is definitely just one example from a long list of the ways that living a rural, quiet life requires great effort at times—effort to drive 20 minutes to a grocery store, effort to see a movie, eat at a restaurant, do a little shopping, or go trick-or-treating.

But ironically, there seems to be an intrinsic trust among my distant and widely spaced neighbors that, I would argue, may not exist in the same way elsewhere in the world where people simply don’t have to work as hard to see one another. There is a deep-seeded appreciation for the visits you receive and visits you extend.

Perhaps for that very reason, I will add a few stops to the trick-or-treating route this year: the rewards will be all the sweeter.