Halloween in New Paltz

Halloween in New Paltz is similar to that holiday in our old Brooklyn neighborhood but on a larger scale. In Brooklyn, the evening begins with a parade and finishes with trick-or-treating, while New Paltz reverses the order, but in both cases, just about everyone with kids (and many without) can be seen in their costumes. In New Paltz, practically the whole town joins in the fun. The best time to take a quick census of New Paltz is probably October 31st.

One change that I like is that in our old nabe, one parent would stay with the little ones while the other had to race back home in order to hand out the candy. In theory, both parents could've gone trick-or-treating, leaving an empty house, but civic duty prevented this: Had everyone adopted this idea, there would be no way for kids to go door-to-door. This meant that Shirra and I took turns manning (or womaning) the house, a much less fun thing to do than the actual trick-or-treating. Happily, that will never again be the case; our house is too isolated for Halloween revellers. For the first time in nearly a decade, Shirra and I got to spend the whole evening together with the kids.

Fiona had decided at the last moment to eschew her Cartman costume in favor of going headless, wearing one of my shirts buttoned over her head, her eyes peeking out between the buttons. Emmett, who also eschewed his purchased costume (a Ninja Turtle) wore a cat-face mask coupled with a cape and a solitary yellow glove. Maeve, eschewing costumes all together, put aside her princess tutu and simply wore some blue pants and a tee shirt with a cat on it.

In contrast, Shirra and I, who usually wear lame costumesor none at all, had bought a matching set: Gepetto and a marionnette. Shirra's costume had two drawbacks: Firstly, the pants were cut too short, revealing parts of her legs that usually only appear publically at a beach. Secondly, the contraption that created the puppet-on-a-string effect tipped over too easily and strained her shoulders. She looked adorable but was happy to go back to her usual costume of 'mom' as soon as the trick-or-treating ended. I like that costume, too.

We met up with our friends and their friends and all of their daughters and made our way to a road with several houses accepting Halloween revelers. My favorite memory of the night is Maeve knocking on door after door and announcing "fick or feet." She was also good about wishing everyone a happy haween.

After hitting up about 20 houses for candy, we made it back to Main St for the big parade. It's huge, really, rivalling the one in Brooklyn's Park Slope. I had the feeling that more people turn out to trick-or-treat than to vote, and today I learned that this is true. Apparently about 75% of Americans have given or gotten candy on Halloween, while fewer than half regularly particpate in the democratic process. Maybe people should hand out voter registration cards along with the candy...tho these days, that would constitute a lot more of a trick than a treat.

We didn't make it to the haunted house we kept hearing about; apparently the lines are very long. We came back home and watched a bit of a DVD while opening a few chocolates. Then life went back to normal. The kids gave me one more present (a cool wood-and-rope puzzle I have yet to solve) and eventually went to bed. It was a great way to spend my birthday in New Paltz.