By Donna Hruska

Suddenly, it’s the witching time again, almost before we’ve managed to pack away the summer clothes. The children, aided and abetted by teachers armed with orange pumpkins and black construction paper cats, plan for it all through the month of October. Parents who strive to maintain their one-upmanship are well advised to get an early start on their own preparations.

Hence, the following guide to a safe, sane and solvent Halloween. May you follow it in (mock) terror.

FOR SAFETY:

• Require all spooks to wear light-colored clothing even if Frankenstein always does wear a black suit. Better seen than sorry.
• Provide a flashlight for each resident trick or treater. (Don’t forget to buy extra batteries. Enthusiastic monsters are prone to spend the night of October 30th practicing their flashlight technique under the covers.)
• Put a flashlight in your jack-o-lantern instead of a candle. If this sounds like a lot of flashlights, keep in mind that a power black-out any time in the next few months will find you ready.
• Don’t use masks unless they have enormous eye holes. Instead, paint faces with makeup, or add false noses or ears, glassless spectacles, fake mustaches or wigs.
• Never cut holes in a sheet for a ghost costume. (One of this aged spook’s most terrifying memories is of running blindly, trying to find her way home when the eye holes of her ghost costume slipped to the side of her head.)
• Find a way for your fairy princess to be dramatic without flowing skirts or sleeves that might catch fire.
• Encourage young tricksters to make their rounds before dark. They won’t be hard to convince, and it will save you from answering for the 240th time, “How much longer before we can go, Mom?”
• Always accompany young children. Fathers do this very well, once convinced.
• Set limits as to how far from home your creepy creatures are allowed to go. It should be far enough to fill a loot bag, but not beyond known neighbors. Adjust loot bag size accordingly.
• Remember to choose costumes large enough to go over a coat. Halloween nights are cold, but no goblin wants to cover his costume with a coat known to everyone on the block.

FOR SANITY:

• Don’t cook a big dinner. Trick or treaters are anxious to be off and haunting as soon as school is out and will be too excited to eat much. After making the rounds, they’ll be too full. (You didn’t expect them to resist sampling the loot, did you?) Instead, put out a variety of cold cuts and insist that everyone have a sandwich and a vitamin pill before leaving.
• Take an extra vitamin pill, yourself, or risk feeling like a ghost of your former self. Remember, you’ve got to answer the door.
• Don’t waste time baking special cookies or making popcorn balls to hand out to trick or treaters. In this strange age, all mothers go through loot bags and throw out anything that isn’t pre-wrapped.
• Pass by those costumes with reflective glitter on them. You’ll be vacuuming it out of the carpet for a week. Buy a roll of reflective tape to add to each outfit instead.

FOR SOLVENCY:

• Buy small treats to pass out and put a limit on how many to each caller. You needn’t feel stingy. They will each collect nomore than enough for a good stomach ache.
• Collect all reasonable goodies (there’ll be plenty left for immediate consumption) and put them in the freezer. Add a few each day to school lunches.
• Keep a costume box all year around. Buy or make only durable costumes that can be used again. Through the year add to the collection. Such things as eye patches, funny hats, cast-off clothing, and old jewelry can make last year’s costume into something entirely different.

One last plea—be on the alert for any movement to make Halloween come more than once a year. It’s great fun, but too many witches spoil the brew, or how does that go—one haunt is enough?

Happy Halloween!

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DONNA HRUSKA
2711 2nd Private Road
Flossmoor, Illinois 60422

First North American Serial Rights

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