My mom loved decorating for Halloween, her favorite season. This year, I am particularly thinking of her as I look around at the decorations around me. She died ten years ago this week.
Every Halloween, she meticulously untangled spider webs into thin strands, carefully placing tiny spiders along the banister or in the corners of the patio. She cut out little bats from purple, orange, and black construction paper, then hung them with ribbon she curled with the sharp edge of the scissors. Her manner of decorating an act of great effort, detail, and subtlety.
When my dad, the Christmas decorator, bought the blow-up Frosty for Christmas one year, she was aghast. Why would he put up a blow-up decoration in favor of the magnificent fifteen-foot-star he handmade with wood, twinkle lights, and greenery?
On a morning walk this week, these memories made me laugh as I looked at a neighbor’s lawn filled with deflated Halloween inflatables — looking like a Halloween decoration graveyard — adorned with a few subtle candy corns hanging by the door. I wondered what my mom would say to that and who in the household liked which decorations.
When I came home, I noticed a new post on NextDoor. It was a photo of the very lawn I just stopped in front of, but taken at night. The Halloween graveyard became alive after dark, bursting with color and so much character. A mother of the house told her neighbors to stop by, honk, and take delight in the spooky decorations her 15-year-old son has collected for years, finally making their debut this year.
This Halloween, I invite us to delight in the decorations of the season: the ghosts, witches, pumpkins, and all the wonderfully strange things that make their appearance on our streets. What memories do they stir for you? Perhaps they bring back Halloween parties, nights spent trick-or-treating, or the delight of punny jokes told on St. Louis doorsteps. Sometimes the smallest details can open the door to memories we haven't visited in years.
On Sunday we will celebrate All Saints Day and invite you to bring a photo of a loved one who you are celebrating this year. It might be someone who died recently, or someone you carry each day. May our altar become a decoration of our collective hearts, memories, and tastes — garish and refined. May we make room for is all in the ways our memories remind of the many forms love takes and when someone is no longer physically here, the traces of their love remain, fine and sticky as a spider’s web, waiting to catch the light.
Blessings,
Pastor Lauren