We have a new tradition for Hallowe’en, begun this year: “All Hallow's Read.”
I love traditions; I am a huge fan them. I grew up with many traditions and I believe it is vital for the kids to grow up and look back fondly, and with amusement, and even with bemusement, at the things that were meaningful, fun, silly, happy, anticipated and even dreaded (in a nostalgic 'I can't believe Mama made Fruit Cake every year!' kind of way), as we mark the passing of the days, seasons and years in their life journeys. Many of our family's traditions have been adopted, adapted and handed-down from the traditions that Amazing Husband and I grew up enjoying in our childhoods, and many are new, and were evolved or created along with our growing family over the past many years.
If the truth were to be told, Amazing Husband is possibly less fond of the traditions than I am, mainly because I am, perhaps, a wee bit tradition-centric when it comes to holidays, and that can be a lot of work. Nevertheless, he hangs in there and enjoys the existing traditions as we circumnavigate the calendar each year. Despite enjoying the already existing traditions, however, he tends to be a bit...skeptical, when I talk about adding new traditions. We both know it is because of the amount of work involved, and in all honesty, his main concern has always been that we not add traditions unless we are reasonably sure we will be able to maintain them in the future, because consistency in the kids' lives is as important to him as it is to me, and he hates to disappoint them.
So, for example, when I was inspired to add a St. Patrick's Day Treasure Hunt tradition--based on an imaginative and whimsical tradition I read about on my friend Fawndear's blog [
...FawnDear...: Magic by Moonlight ]--to the long list of regular days, holidays, achievements, accomplishments and events we mark each year as they go by, he basically put the kibosh on it. Realistically, as Amazing Husband pointed out during our discussion about my desire to add a St. Patrick's Day Treasure Hunt to our laundry list of annual traditions, we have no less than twenty-three birthdays and anniversaries between March and April alone, and when you calculate in Dr. Seuss’s B-day/Read across America Day, St. Patrick's Day (we do already have a few existing traditions), and Easter, the mere suggestion of adding anything else
is kind of ludicrous. Particularly when said 'something' is as involved as an individualized Leprechaun’s-Pot-of-Gold treasure hunt for each kid. Consequently, Amazing Husband and Common Sense won that debate, and I regulated my daydreams of St. Patrick's Day Treasure Hunts to the 'Things I Can Do For My Grandkids Because I Will Have A Lot More Time By Then' queue.
When I discovered the suggestion of the All Hallow's read tradition, however, I knew we would both be on the same page about adding it to our family's tradition repertoire!
Here is how it happened:
I am an avid reader of author Neil Gaiman's blog, and just about a week before Hallowe’en he wrote a post observing that there aren't enough book-giving holidays, and suggested the idea of an "All Hallow's Read" tradition to remedy the situation. [The original blog post is here: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2010/10/modest-proposal-that-doesnt-actually.html ]
I loved the idea, and when I presented it to Amazing Husband he was on board with it right away. (Although he did say he would have preferred a bit of notice, as I kind of sprung it on him on the day of Hallowe'en!). Next year we will be preparing for it over the weeks in advance of the holiday, and really shop around for the best deals at the local used bookstores and such, but for this year we just popped over to the Big Name Bookstore nearby, and gleefully bought spooky books all around!
Ender has been very into the classics lately, so we bought him
Mary Shelly's Frankenstein.
Monkey Boy was a bit tricky, as his tastes don't generally run to the spooky, but we ultimately decided on Neil Gaiman's
The Graveyard Book for him, as we thought he might enjoy it, and, of course, we had to include at least one book by the author who inspired the new tradition!
Za Boo was even harder to shop for than Monkey Boy, as generally even the mention of anything spooky sends her running, but we settled on
The Sisters Grimm by Michael Buckley, as it appears to focus more on the mystery/detective aspect of the genre, than the scary stuff. I've had my eye on that one for her for awhile, and this was a great opportunity to include it in a way that wouldn't feel overwhelming; time will tell if she can handle its degree of scary.
The Raven could have been the hardest to buy for, because she thoroughly enjoys the scary and there are so many choices that it might have been hard to narrow it down, but she had recently finished
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice, so the logical choice for her was
The Vampire Lestat, which is what we bought.
Amazing Husband had been wanting to re-read
Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury, and we did not have a copy in the house, so he got that, and I chose
Coraline, by, again, Neil Gaiman, because I have been interested in reading it ever since seeing the movie.
We bought another Neil Gaiman book,
American Gods, for my best friend. We are both avid readers, and have always shared books with each other, so it was a no-brainer to include her in the new holiday tradition!
We didn't buy anything at the bookstore for MiL, as she has basically given up printed books since the acquisition of her Kindle, but we did tell her to choose a scary book on the Kindle, and we would gift it to her.
The kids were delighted by the new books and the new tradition when we presented them with both just before Trick-o-Treat was about to commence on Hallowe'en evening. Everyone has been happily reading all week, and the only problem now, is having to wait a whole year until we can celebrate All Hallow’s Read again! ;)
http://journal.neilgaiman.com
http://fawndear.blogspot.com
http://www.allhallowsread.com
