Editor:
Halloween, my favourite “holiday” every year. It is about life, meeting and overcoming fear, learning to revere the dead, and so much more. Most children love to be scared. Read Bruno Bettelheim’s fabulous works on children’s literature. Fairy tales with threatening wolves, The Wild Things (many exist here), represent all the fears children and adults experience.
Whatever the true roots of All Hallows’ Eve, pagan or Christian, it has evolved, some of it for good, carrying on the traditions of the holiday, some of it for bad, being commercial exploitation. But it’s just so much fun. I made costumes every year for my kids, two memorable – my narrow and tall 10-year-old as a perfect Jack Skellington, and same year, my eight-year-old daughter as a perfect, pink Juice Box complete with straw from the top of her head. The joy of children on Halloween, and the opportunity for parents to engage them, are priceless.
Frank McElroy, Roberts Creek
