As Saturday morning’s fog lifted like a ghostly veil, a slew of pirates, butterflies and bipedal cats trickled into Halloween-themed events around the Upper Valley. For the most part, parents and grandparents trailed behind them — and for good reason, said Brittany Spencer-Lyon, of Claremont. She, as do many other parents, feels that there has been a cultural shift away from the kinds of Halloween traditions they grew up with, in part due to heightened safety concerns and changing social norms.
But that doesn’t mean the Halloween spirit has to fade.
At the Valley Regional Hospital Health Fair, in Claremont, local businesses had set up tables garnished with bowls — and the occasional cauldron — of goodies. Spencer-Lyon’s 5-year-old, Aurora Stillwell, was the belle of the ball as “D’lish Donut,” a character in the collectible toy line Shopkins.
In the past few years, Claremont stores and businesses have started offering free candy for trick-or-treaters, Spencer-Lyon said. She said she thinks this is a good thing, since letting her daughter accept treats from business representatives feels safer than accepting treats from a stranger, who may or may not have sinister motives.
But she realizes that, for many trick-or-treaters, tearing open their candy as soon as possible is half the point of the holiday. Though she likes to inspect the goods before they’re gobbled down, she tries not to let this impinge on her daughter’s fun.
“As a kid there’s nothing more heartbreaking than being told you can’t have a piece of candy on Halloween night,” Spencer-Lyon said. “So I keep a secret stash in my purse. … It’s just safer this way.”
Aurora, eager to show off her costume, wandered over to the Claremont Savings Bank table, where a staffer handed her a small souvenir. Her mom followed. “You got a piggy?” she said. “Wow!”
Also at the health fair was Megan Vaughn, born and raised in Claremont, and her sons, 2-year-old Colton and 6-month-old Bennett. When Vaughn was a kid, she lived in a quiet neighborhood — so quiet, in fact, that Halloween night was usually “pretty dead. … Now we live in the Bluff (Elementary School) area, so they actually bus in between 600 and 1,000 kids for trick-or-treating,” she said. It gets so busy that the Claremont Police Department will patrol the neighborhood during prime trick-or-treating hours.
“I think it’s good we’re adjusting to the times,” she said, fixing Bennett’s pumpkin hat, which had fallen askew. “But at the same time, it’s sad that it had to come to this.”
But Halloween isn’t all about the trick-or-treating.
Up in White River Junction, runners and walkers competed in the “Gory Daze” 5K race, which kicked off at the Dothan Brook School in White River Junction to benefit the Hartford Dismas House. Afterward, as organizers were putting away balloons and goodie bowls, the Backas family stood in the school parking lot and waited for Jeff Backas, of Springfield, Vt., to finish recovering from the grueling (ghouling?) race. Four generations of the family had showed up from Connecticut to support him: There was Ann Clark, 78; her daughter Lisa Backas, 56; Lisa’s son and daughter-in-law, Cody and Lauren Backas; and Ellie Backas, 7 months old and the only one in costume — a gray mouse with pink ears.
They discussed favorite costumes, favorite candy and favorite traditions. But what Clark misses most is the pranks.
“It was so much fun. We’d do stuff like, oh, throw old junk in someone’s yard if we didn’t like them,” she said, though she hastened to add that she herself wasn’t a prankster — just a spectator who very much enjoyed watching the action — and that nobody got hurt.
“One time, we brought a cow into a school, a calf, and we tied it to the teacher’s desk,” she said, and started to laugh so hard that she had to catch her breath before continuing. “It pooped all over the floor! It pooped everywhere!”
Nowadays, Lisa Backas said, such mischief is liable to get a person into deep trouble. But because the houses in many rural communities were so far apart that trick-or-treaters had to drive, not walk, from house to house, tomfoolery was their way of celebrating the night.
There wasn’t any trick-or-treating at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science, in Quechee, either. But the Halloween spirit could still be felt in the carved pumpkins lining the walkways, in the ghoulish face-paint designs — and in the Hoots and Howls activity, which involved the rather macabre task of dissecting owl pellets to examine the regurgitated bones, beaks, fur and feathers of small animals that had been gulped down whole.
Not the most traditional Halloween activity — but Adam Briggs, who is from England but is living in Hanover for the year, was still impressed by how seriously Americans take the holiday. England technically celebrates Halloween, but it’s “considerably more understated there,” he said. “A few people might put out pumpkins, maybe there are a few parties. But nothing like this.”
The sheer number of Halloween-themed parties, activities, decorations and events, he said, “really highlights the cultural differences between the U.K. and here.”
His 4-year-old daughter, Batgirl — aka Iris Briggs — enjoyed the fanfare.
“Yeah, she insisted on being Batgirl,” her dad said. “She’s been dressing like this every day.”
Before the Briggs family went off for face-painting, her dad asked Iris what design she wanted.
“Batgirl,” she said.
EmmaJean Holley can be reached at eholley@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.