Halloween in the Hebrides

An important occassion on the calendar, Halloween has become, most certainly, the scariest night of the year in our area.
As my boys have grown older, their costumes seem to have crept closer to the border, from chilling to disturbing. This year, Austin was the butcher of Kershader....

But this is not what makes it the scariest night of the year.  For me, the frightening part is when all the parents emerge from their separate houses and congregate together for the annual Halloween party followed by trick or treating. 
It is always a brilliant night, lots of fun, the kids have the best time ever, running from house to house in the dark collecting bucketfulls of sweets, but the pre-party nerves make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up alarmingly.
(This year Morris peaked too soon, having already been out guising somewhere else the night before, he had a melt down and refused to go to the local party.  A parental nightmare, the indecision of whether to force your child to join in, or let them just be - horrific.) 

Some villages are hyper organised, they plan times, meals, drops off points and are joyous in their togetherness.

My village and the one next door are often at war with each other for a large part of the year, have no communication skills and have the largest amount of children to appease. 
But again this year, it all worked out for the best in the end!

I think the root cause of the Halloween fear, sadly, comes from friendship.

When people are on committees - as they often are here, there is a committee for something nearly every night of the week - people know their roles and purpose and everyone feels generally comfortable with this.

But when we have to go to a 'party', have 'fun' and be ourselves..?  I don't always know where to put myself, so after years of Halloween parties now, I have learnt to just follow the lead... of the kids!

Our children are taught in school how to behave with their classmates to always get along.  They know it is not right to have petty squabbles or take offense at someone else's behaviour just because they are different to us.  They are learning to be tolerant, patient and understanding.  Adults aren't always as well behaved - and ironically in our villages, it is often the adults who are teachers that are the most naughty...

But when you see the kids all running around together, jeering and joking, egging each other on and telling each other off like equals do, it makes you realise us adults are just crap at being friends sometimes.

Never mind - with Halloween night closing for another year, we can now all look forward to the next community occassion - Christmas...!