Maxwell Mania: Hellish Halloween!

The last two weeks have been crazy busy for me - but in a good way!

The Spawn has been having huge jumps in his self-confidence around walking.  He took two independent steps from his physical therapist to me at his last physical therapy appointment - and I had to hide my sudden tears from my little guy.  We've been going to parks as often as possible because he'll walk assisted to a playground then climb up and down all the stairs.  Spawn also likes to throw objects down slides - so I've made him a bunch of duct-taped covered beanbags for him to throw.   He's having so much fun that his legs and arms will be shaking from exhaustion - but he still wants to play more. 

Spawn's also starting to stand independently for short periods on his own of his own volition - so we've started playing "Toppling Toddler!"  In that game, he stands with his back to me as I sit on the floor.  I let go of him and he stands by himself until he topples backward and I catch him.  He thinks that's hilarious because I keep saying "Oh, no!  When will the toddler topple? How will I know to catch him?  Oh, no! Oh, no!" in a fake-worried voice while Spawn laughs.  Little does he know that I love the fact that he stands a whole lot longer because he wants to surprise me when he falls :-).

The diy home retailer that I worked at had two college-graduates leave their jobs for their first professional jobs - and they left out of two departments that I am trained in so I've picked up a lot of hours.  One of the jobs I've gotten trained in is working the guest service desk.  It's not my favorite job - but there's a lot of problem-solving which I'm good at and I have enough customer service experience to laugh off the rare irritated person.    I hadn't thought my skills were anything unusual - but I received an internal prize for willingness to learn new skills and how quickly I picked up my new skills.   Since Spawn will be starting school soon - so soon! - I'll be applying for a full-time position that will be opening in the paint department around New Year that'll be available for afternoon/evening shifts.

While all of that has been going on, fall has come to Michigan.  I love fall - and I love Halloween.  I enjoy seeing little kids all dressed up in their costumes - and the costumes of not-so-little kids as well.  For Spawn's first Halloween when he was nearly a year old, I dressed him up as an elephant.  Last year, I dressed him up as Mr. Peabody from "Bullwinkle and Friends" because his round blue glasses combined with the fact that his hair grows naturally into a part-less front triangle made it self-explanatory to anyone who saw the show.   This year, I found a cute second-hand lion costume which is as close to a cat  (Spawn's favorite animal) as I've seen.   I generally throw on a witch's hat and call it good.  My husband doesn't like group costumes so I've informed him that his costume this year is "not-a-wardrobe" because I can't pass up that obvious of a pun; my husband approves.

Since I haven't had time to read in the next few chapters of "Joyfully At Home", I decided to go for low-hanging fruit again.  I went to Titus 2, searched the term Halloween, and found this gem article where Teri Maxwell shares how her family evolved from celebrating Halloween like most Americans to where they are today.  Mrs. Maxwell begins with the trickiest bit of the whole story: navigating the fact that Steven and Teri Maxwell grew up trick-or-treating and enjoyed it!   She falls back on the trope of having a realization of how Christians shouldn't do that after she was born-again - but she's still got the issue of explaining why their family tried to celebrate Halloween in various ways for 15 years before giving up the ghost.

She declares that she thought that she could manage to celebrate Halloween while keeping her family's values intact.   That made me giggle a bit because parenting is essentially figuring out how to interact with the world in ways that pass important values down to your kids - but hey - why admit the Maxwells are all in the same boat as the rest of us?

After fulfilling that trope, Mrs. Maxwell launches into a second trope: good Christians are doomed to be miserable when doing worldly things:

The first Halloween our little ones were of an age to trick-or-treat (back in the early 1980s) I had made them very cute costumes. Out we trooped on Halloween night to the “safe” close neighbors, determined to make memories as we went. It wasn’t long until I had one child in my arms and two more clinging to my leg begging to return home. The lure of free candy did not overpower the fear in their hearts as they looked at the other trick-or-treaters.

How much of this story is true and how much of it is a technicolor creation for motivated readers thinking about forgoing Halloween?   A later section about their second attempt at Halloween happened when Nathan was six years old so the previous quote discusses Teri going trick-or-treating with a 5-year old, a two or three year old and an infant of less than a year.  The first thing that struck me about that is that no one can refute her memories; I have no clear memories of specific Halloweens until I was a pre-teen. 

More broadly, how much of this alleged fiasco was just plain bad planning?  We take our son out trick-or-treating while the sun is still up with two adults (or more if we have grandparents in tow) and are completely finished before it is dark.   Seeing strangers in masks is amusing in daylight with lots of company.  It can be totally terrifying in the dark for small children!  Honestly, trick-or-treating is more fun for my husband and I than it is for our son at his age - so why did Teri drag all three kids out by herself?  Couldn't Steven come along to help with crowd control?  Or stay at home with little Christopher and tiny Sarah while Teri took Nathan out?

Once we made the “no trick-or-treating” decision, we still had to deal with children who would come to the door on Halloween. Surely, this would be an opportunity to witness to them by handing out tracts along with the candy. We could involve our children in choosing tracts. Plus, we would still be building warm, childhood memories by letting them hand out the goodies and tracts.

Interesting fact: in 1984 when this attempt at Halloween went down, the Maxwells could have prevented children showing up at the door by turning the house light off.   I'm deeply sorry that the Maxwells had to suffer through eight more years of attempts at Halloween before they figured that little social norm out.

And yes!  Children LOVE doing the grudge work behind the scenes while other kids get to wear costumes and get bulging bags of candy!  Added bonus: CHICK TRACTS!  Nothing is more fun that giving other children comics that manage to be melodramatic and preachy at the same time!

Apparently, six-year old Nathan gave out candy and tracts once, then gave the bowl back to his mom and ran to his dad.  Teri Maxwell explains that he didn't want to do it because the masks of the kids were really scary - but I suspect Nathan was more than old enough to realize he was getting ripped off and refused to participate.

As someone who has lots of experience in customer service, this next anecdote made me laugh so hard I cried:

Our next attempts revolved around getting together with like-minded families and going out for dinner on Halloween. The first time we did this, the waitress was dressed up like a witch! The next year we phoned ahead requesting that our waitress not be dressed up as anything evil, but of course that couldn’t change what other customers and waitresses were wearing. Nor could we avoid our children seeing the trick-or-treaters on the streets as we went to and from the restaurant.

No!  Not a witch!  Who would expect an adult woman wearing a costume that costs around $5.00 for a hat added to serviceable black clothing in a waitress job?   Oh, wait.  Everyone.  Literally anyone who has celebrated Halloween in the US ever - except the Maxwells.

My apologies to the server who had two Maxwell parents glaring at her all night.  I hope she was still working there the next year when the Maxwells called to pre-approve the costumes of the waitstaff because that's customer service comedic gold!

Remember, the Maxwells were already speeding down the path to massively restricting reading materials for children - including animals that talk.    What costumes, then, would be acceptable?  Bible characters - but we aren't speaking the correct languages!  Oh, woe is us!

I grew up in a neighborhood where one family or another would stop celebrating Halloween for a year or two at a time for religious reasons.  My memories of these families didn't include trying to shelter their kids from knowing that Halloween existed; they just taught their kids that anyone who was celebrating Halloween was going to hell - and Jesus really loved the non-Halloween kids more.  Kinda like the Chick Tract I linked - but more self-important and prim. 

Finally, Mrs. Maxwell shares how totally isolated from society her kids had become with pride:

Our younger children didn’t even know the word “Halloween” for many years. When the now-popular Halloween lights began to go up, they thought they were Christmas lights. Steve does not take the younger children with him to do the nursing home ministry during the month of October because they would have to stare at evil figures hung on the curtains behind him for an entire hour. We encourage the children to look away from the grotesque and evil.

Pause and think about the level of sheltering the Maxwells claim to be proud of. 

The younger kids (e.g., everyone below Sarah) were unaware of a major holiday in the US.   Instead, the younger kids thought that people put out Christmas lights for a few weeks, took them down, and put up Christmas lights again?  Which makes me curious - are the younger Maxwells completely incurious - or did the parents lie through their teeth?  I have to imagine someone in the family asked why people changed out Christmas light colors - but I have no idea how to answer that without lying...a lot.

On the other hand, the last two sentences make me laugh every single time.   Man, that nursing home should know better than to decorate curtains with posters of serial killers and genocidal leaders.   No wonder the people in the nursing home are sad!   But seriously - that's how the Maxwells treat the fifty cent crepe-paper ghosts, witches, pumpkins and skeletons that predominate in institutional setting.   

It's really mean to keep the kids away from the nursing home ministry for a month.  First, those elderly Christians are the ONLY source of non-family interaction that most of the Maxwell kids have.  Second, if the residents have to listen to Steven Maxwell for an hour, they should at least get the amusement of seeing some Maxwell kids.   Actually, that makes me wonder if attendance at the nursing home services drops off in October...or if Maxwell thought about asking the home to cover the decorations during the service.

Ah, well.  I hope you enjoyed this as  much as I did!

Follow-up: After a large(ish) windstorm, the one internet tower that reaches our house was damaged.  Our internet mostly dead and I can rarely sneak away to work on posts.   As soon as the tower is repaired, I'll be back online.