Our doorbell rang three times last night.
In decades past I’d have expected 40 or 50 ding-dong-dings. Maybe 60. I am not sure what has happened to our Hallowe’ens, but I can guess. In the beginning, in the years when my kids were little, this neighborhood was full of families who had moved in when the original owners moved out. We had voices in the streets–parents to children, children to each other, children to their bags of candy, frankly. Beams of flashlights criss-crossing up the sidewalk. Black conical hats.
As the kids grew up, or, this being Silicon Valley, and the parents made their tens or hundreds of millions and moved to fancier towns and larger houses, our population changed. Brief digression. One of my neighbors, after what we call a “liquidity event,”, emailed to ask if I’d be willing to sell them some of my backyard so they could could build a guest house for family. I explained that my yard didn’t actually abut their land, just my house itself; they moved out. No hard feelings.
The next several years I still got 20-30 Munch “Screams,” robots (again, Silicon Valley), fairies and so on, but now they were mostly from the Hispanic neighborhood on the other side of the freeway. Larger groups of kids; grownups hanging back; everyone thanking me.
Came the pandemic. Came the shopping center’s Hallowe’en events. And, perhaps the death blow, came the current rage for all-in decorating. Some streets in my neighborhood cover themselves in skeletons, spiders and witches smashed into tree trunks.
If I were to travel to take my kids for Hallowe’en adventures, I’d go there too. My single mid-sized ceramic pumpkin with putative carvings, “Boo,” lit by candles, is less compelling. Frankly.
I feel the passage of time much more acutely for this holiday than, say, Christmas or Thanksgiving. Partly because my kids never wore the same costume twice and costumes can be so memorable – my daughter as the Tin Woodman (gray sweatshirt and red felt heart pinned to her chest because I cannot sew), my son as a potato (a very large bag made of a sheet, dyed brown and filled with foam pieces that I carried once it became clear that the foam would settle around his shins preventing him from walking.) Or maybe I’m remembering Liz, my best friend who died of glioblastoma in 2021. She and I took our kids out together in the prime years, the running years, and came back to my house so the kids could sort and count their candy on the living room rug.
Most of all though, I think it’s because Hallowe’en is a such a communal project. I can repeat Christmas traditions. Take out those brass stocking hooks, hope I don’t drop them on my toes, every year. My siblings and I can debate garlic or plain Thanksgiving mashed potatoes, every year. But Hallowe’en is nothing without those tiny strangers and their beaming parents on my doorstep. Other people mark the passing of this time.
Which seems appropriate, albeit a little sad, for a holiday that celebrates the most human of passings. Time to ramp up the festivities? I do not care for live pumpkins, but maybe next year I’ll hang hundreds of orange lights from my front yard trees and see who comes. I’d have to up my candy game, of course. No more single Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, I’d want veritable chocolate and peanut butter mountains to give out. What would my mother, she who always made our costumes and once dressed her four children as the Sun, Earth, Moon and a tiny Star, think?
Have a wonderful weekend. I hope you have your favorite candy to hand.
18 Responses
I live in Petaluma CA (Sonoma). In 2008, when I moved to a house on D Street, the neighbors asked if anyone had warned me about Halloween. Nope.
I had moved from a nice neighborhood in Oakland, where the children expected the smaller size of candy bars. We probably had 100 kids, not necessarily from our neighborhood.
D Street in Petaluma had a horde of 2500 kids (and parents) for Halloween 2008. Part of the attraction was the house across the street, owned by the CEO of Clover-Stornetta Dairy. They had someone dressed up as Clo the Cow and gave away half-pints of milk (regular or chocolate), with takeaway cups of coffee for the parents.
My next-door neighbors brought in bales of hay and carved about 30 pumpkins, which were scattered on the hay-bales. Another neighbor had set up a pirate’s cove. Et cetera.
I had been warned, so I ordered box-loads of the lollipops that doctors used to give away, and the tiny size of Tootsie Rolls. My friends (who live on a hill in San Rafael and had minimal trick-or-treater-opportunities) brought their kids, who were 5 and 7. They had never seen anything like it! Think of the lines at a major airport, on a major holiday….
We set up a table in the driveway (to protect the 15 steps up to the front door) and gave out the candy. At one point, the kids’ dad took them to join the fun, which they really enjoyed.
Unlike the groups in my previous neighborhood, everyone was happy, polite, and kind. The local police set up traffic control in the nearest intersection, and they handed out treats, too. (At 9pm, they also encouraged the older kids to start going home.) One of the neighbors had a band. Another had someone to paint children’s faces. It was a carnival. And best of all, it didn’t matter about the size of the treats — everyone said thank you!
Fast forward — two years ago, I downsized and move 3 blocks away. There are lots of older people in the neighborhood, but a sufficient number of children to warrant decorations and costumes. And for the older kids, D Street is only a couple of blocks away, it’s the best of all Halloween worlds!
It sounds like Halloween paradise! I am very fond of Petaluma, I have to say. It seems like a really nice place to live. And Clo the Cow giving away milk – not gonna happen anywhere else in the world I bet:). What a nice story.
Petaluma is a wonderful place to live. I grew up in San Francisco, and in the summer, we’d drive from the foggy Sunset District to Camp Royaneh in Guerneville. (My father was a professional Boy Scout executive, and he spent most of the summer there.) We’d drive on the Old Redwood Highway, and it would take hours to get up to the Russian River. By the time we got to Mill Valley, the sun would be breaking through. We’d eat lunch in the car and stop in Petaluma at the old Co-Op Creamery for ice cream cones. It was always my ideal of summertime — lovely warm weather and ice cream from the local cows. Heaven!
After my mother passed in 2004, I realized I could live anywhere. I had been going up to Sonoma on occasion with friends, and I realized that since I was self-employed, I could live anywhere. In 2007, I started looking in earnest, and I moved in 2008. It was a leap of faith, since I didn’t think I knew anyone; however, I had met Kathleen Weber of Della Fattoria at the SF Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market (a kindred spirit, also a redhead with curly hair), and it turned out that I had wonderful friends from SF who had moved up there (an architect and his artist wife). So with that as a foundation, I’ve built a lovely life here.
I was visiting your family over the the weekend when your mother (she of many talents) created the famous Peanuts tableau with each of you – I think there was a mailbox, a pencil, and an envelope addressed to The Great Pumpkin – she certainly set a standard that I never quite reached with my own kids! My own best was my daughter as a single M&M (much effect for little work!). Plus my son as a Northwest Native American totem pole (a good friend had just written a well-illustrated book on the subject, so we had excellent models to copy with poster board). Then there’s the year he was Robin Hood, but many people thought he was Peter Pan – or maybe it was vice-versa? Nice to have memories jogged as memory is failing…
Oh my gosh, yes, up at the Woodside house. It was exactly as you say, mailbox, pencil and letter. My littlest sister was too little then, I think. I imagine your children remember your costumes with every bit as much fondness and awe as I remember my mom’s.
Imagining the Sun, Earth, Moon and tiny Star costumes warms my heart. <3
I've been feeling very down lately and couldn't really put my finger on it. Maybe it's something like you described: the passage of time and wondering where I fit along it. I only remember trick-or-treating a few times as a kid — always with friends, not parents — and we simply walked all over town, knocked on every single door and always met friendly faces. That would have been in the early nineties. Every year I wonder for a minute if it was really a safer world for children then, or if people's perception is what has changed. And then, each time, I realize that yes indeed, it was much safer… but that isolation from others and the perception of individuals themselves is what creates the real dangers children face (gun violence, cyberbullying…). It's a circle. The last time I went was in sixth grade; my best friend and I got taken to a salvage store and told to choose something from their usual stock for costumes. We ended up being biker chicks. :) That's still some of the most fun I've ever had.
Have a wonderful weekend, Lisa. Thank you as always for sharing such thought-provoking memories and stories.
Also, my favorite treats to get were candy apples (perhaps because they were so rare) — they were always wrapped in sparkly cellophane with a little bow. I felt special that someone had gone to such trouble to make that for me. They’re actually very easy to make — though difficult at scale if you expect a crowd — and less guilt-inducing to eat if you have leftovers. ;)
“I’ve been feeling very down lately and couldn’t really put my finger on it. Maybe it’s something like you described: the passage of time and wondering where I fit along it.”
Yes. You put it so well, yes.
Mainly the effrontery of 47 to our individual dignity, our country’s dignity. Did he really have to double pump his fist prior to deplaning in S. Korea? I’m not sure I’ll ever get over that.
[If you have to delete this, I completely understand, Lisa.]
So true. Depression is a constant hum in the background this year, along with fear of what comes next. I know the mental stress has affected my health and am sure all caring souls among us are in the same boat.
Yesterday went pretty well, though: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/05/us/politics/election-takeaways-democrats.html
Lisa! I love your costume sensibility! I too enjoyed cobbling together getups for myself & my kids (though how in the early 80s how badly I wanted a store bought mask & “shower curtain” costume like my classmates)
I agree with you about Halloween showing passage of time. I currently live at an “aspirational” historic neighborhood where there is not a lot of movement (“aging in place”) – but love when kids come from other areas. Love gushing over their costumes. I’d hire a candy giver outer before I were to leave a bowl out “just take one” nonsense. (Or just turn off the lights)
Also – did you notice how kids are leaning into fruity, gummy, sour candies. They are the M&M mars chocolate peanut stuff (Costco sells and super conmon). I prefer to give out obscure or less common – stupid Amzn, World Market, H Mart, Nuts dot com are great sources.
Enjoy upping your Halloween game!
I think it was safer for white kids, if they didn’t live in abject poverty or have addict parents. In some ways, we are now all experiencing what some people in American have faced all along. Segregation and danger. That part is very sad. I can imagine that if you haven’t hit the standard markers of what people do at what age, for example, gotten married or had kids or gotten the first promotion or whatever, it might be disorienting. Or if choices you made have assumptions ripped out from under.
But we should all wish that we might take each other to salvage stores and find ourselves to be biker chicks. I’m hoping and hoping that we will get there in my life time. You’re welcome:)
I, too, have been reminiscing about Hallowe’ens past (and I favour the apostrophe’d spelling as well) . . . With 9 years between our oldest and our youngest, it was a busy and wonderfully dramatic, festive, fun day or two (plus the costume-planning days before and the sugar-high days following) for well over 20 years of my life. . . Even after that, we at least had a few trick-or-treaters come to the door. . . and then a few years, just waning now, where we at least get photos of the grandkids in their costumes. The Almost-Seventeen is more into Rocky Horror Picture Show viewings with friends, but last night we got costume photos of the other five. None but the eldest live close enough to stop by to do a trick or get a treat, and in our 5th-floor condo, there’s no point in a jack o’lantern. Nor any point buying 35 chocolate bars for possible trick-or-treaters and then having to eat all the leftovers.
Instead, we dined on halibut, squash, green beans, and watched an episode each of Slow Horses and The Morning Show. . .
Tonight we’re having everyone over for Chinese takeout and ice cream and hoping to hear a bit about last night’s adventures. . . And maybe compare generational experiences.
Thanks for this post. It’s a funny little phenomenon and I’m glad to see other responses to it. xo
It is exactly that, a funny little phenomenon. You have four children, as my mom did, also with 9+ years between oldest and youngest. If it’s poetry, that era, it’s an epic, and worth musing over and noticing how it presages and mirrors the passage of time. xo
Halloween has evolved over the years and not always in a traditional sort of way.
In my town, the Center is where everyone gathers for trick-or-treating. The rest of the town is generally just like any other night.
I live on a dead end street with 6 houses, each on very large woodland lots. The neighborhood 5 kids (after being in the Center of town for the big event) stop by for Halloween and I have little gift bags for each child. It is fun to see the kids in costume and I know each child.
I do miss the crowds of children in costume with their parents running from house to house to show off their costumes and amass candy of all sorts.
So your festival of those passed both gathers in the center, for the whole community, and then your smaller neighborhood has their own moment. That does sound quite lovely in its own way.
We moved from a denser suburban neighborhood to a quiet rural one just as our two aged out of trick-or-treating. I miss the busyness. And the pressure. Our greatest victory snatched from the jaws of costume creativity block was the year of green sweats, construction paper cut into fruit shapes, and a hole punch: The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Anyone else have toilet paper tubes on hand during the grade school years? Because covering those things in blue construction paper and basting them to a little ski cap for caterpillar antennae MADE that outfit.
The busyness and the pressure! The moments of greatness! The sheer creativity and required resourcefulness. You describe it so well. I LOVE the Very Hungry Caterpillar as costume. Brilliant idea and sounds like inspired execution.
Hello Lisa, What a touching and fun post. My only disappointment is that you didn’t show us photos of those costumes, especially the Sun, Earth, Moon and Star. Which one were you?
All the comments today were also wonderful memories to read about–and that Petaluma story was beyond amazing!
–Jim