Halloween morning Bracken woke up, looked over at me, and exclaimed: “Candle Pumpkin Day, Mama!” with so much excitement that I started the day with a big smile. Halloween will always be known to me as Candle Pumpkin Day now. I just love that. A lot. We put some of our little homegrown pumpkins around the house and then that morning while I made breakfast, Bracken hollowed out the insides of some of the pumpkins at the kitchen table.

This year when I asked Bracken what he wanted to be for Halloween he said “a siamese cat belly dancer.” Well, I had no idea how I was going to pull that one off. Last year he was a bear and I knitted him a bear hoodie and dressed him in brown. I told him it was a little cold out for belly dancers on Halloween night, but we found some creative solutions. His grandma had brought him some cat things for his costume when she came to visit us and then she got him the bellydance headwear when he fell in love with it at a store. It turned out to be perfect to wear underneath his cat ears. He dressed all in black and after the pictures I put a tan sweater on him, to stick with the black and tan siamese cat theme. He put on his cat nose long enough for me to take a picture, but then he said it was stinky and he couldn’t breathe in it so he took it off. (I want to get some of these natural face pencils & natural face paints for next year.)

We went to the Waldorf School on Halloween night, like we did last year. (We skipped the hayride this year, letting Bracken have a good nap at home instead before we left for the festivities that evening.) It was fun to see friend’s costumes. A friend makes amazing handmade costumes each year and I look forward to seeing them every Halloween now. There was music, skits (the man dressed in a bear costume riding a tiny bicycle was a hit), a wizard’s cave with potions (Bracken and I have been playing that for days now), and candles along the pathways. I know I’ve said this before, but I really appreciate that they give out wholesome foods rather than candy. Last year they gave out pears and pumpkin seeds and this year they gave out cranberries. (And when they hand out cookies at the very end, I just give Bracken dried blueberries and he’s happy as can be. He can get wired enough with too much fruit, so I can’t imagine what it would be like if we fed him any sugar.) The other thing I appreciate is that the vibe isn’t scary, I like the costumes being fun and sweet.

They encouraged the parents to dress up too. Jeff has it easy when it comes to that. He puts on a cloak and holds a staff and he is an instant wizard. (In fact when we are at market and I direct people to our booth, I tell them they will know they are in the right booth when they see a lot of wood and a man who resembles Gandalf or Dumbledorf, that’s my husband.) My go-to costume over the years has been to wear my hair in braids, put a headband on and stick a feather in it, and put on a long skirt and some moccasins and be a Native American. But this year I cut my hair off so that wasn’t really going to work. I ended up wrapping a white curtain around my shoulders (the only white fabric I could find), borrowed Bracken’s white feather boa and some of his felted wool wings, and made myself a last minute halo out of pipe cleaners that immediately fell over when I put it on. I was a last minute Angel. It wasn’t my best costume job ever, but Bracken was delighted to see me dressed up (and may have wanted to change his costume to be an Angel too, but luckily decided to stick with the costume we already had prepared.)

What did you do for your Candle Pumpkin Day, friends? Did you dress up?