By Annabelle Chapple
For a long time I was anti-Halloween. It started in the period after I was a kid but before I had them – borne of a fear the night of dress-ups and lollies (‘candy’, ugh) was a sign we’d lost all sense of identity. I’d see plastic pumpkin paraphernalia fill supermarket shelves in September and roll my eyes, another custom peacocked by Hollywood. But, as with most personal hangups, I had to confront it when I had a child.
It was my then four year old daughter’s doing. Her kindy friends had mentioned they were ‘trickle treating’ that night and she was desperate to find out what the hype was about. I couldn’t talk her out of it, so we scrounged together a dress up at home and ventured out into the streets of the neighbourhood we’d only recently moved into.
It wasn’t what I’d been expecting. The usual shuttered and private homes had decorated doors flung open. Neighbours I’d never seen were offering lollies with a smile, inviting us into their ‘haunted house’. So much effort was made just to entertain. My kid marvelled. We bumped into friends, even family and passed other satisfied mums and dads walking children door to door, each drunk on the comfort of community.
A friend who is Canadian but now calls Australia home came across the twilight scene with her one year old last year and was comforted by its sense of neighbourliness. “This is what it feels like in Canada except bigger, more streets,” she said.
Halloween is now an October tradition our whole family looks forward to for the opposite reason our European pagan ancestors started it. While Samhain was originally a Celtic celebration of the beginning of the dark half of the year, we celebrate All Hallow’s Eve as the gateway to our sunniest six months where togetherness abounds.
TWW Recipe – Maman’s Salad
To counter a Halloween sugar binge, make ahead this easy salad with a moreish dressing taught to me by French-speaking host mums who lived worlds apart (Belgium and Tahiti) but miraculously shared the same recipe.
Three Wise Women is available to purchase at Scrumptious Reads in Red Hill or at www.annabellechapple.com
