In Anytown USA, Halloween gets its turn on the holiday calendar to take over home and landscape design, but in Utah, like other holidays, the display of Halloween spirit is, well, more spirited.
Perhaps it is the natural tension between the secular and the sacred that permeates life in Utah, that emboldens Halloween in the Beehive. After all, its’ pre-Christian origin brings along a dark and mildly sinister aspect that invites a light dabbling in the old ways. For one day, we get to dip a toe into the dark side. Plus, candy!
Halloween is truly an ecumenical event. Every neighbor’s door is fair game—Mormon, Jewish, Catholic, Muslim—and each knock holds the promise of more candy, the great leveler. It is the one time that, yes, you can take candy from a stranger.
Here in Salt Lake, there are whole neighborhoods that make this night the night. Wilson Ave., for example, a mid-block lane southeast of Liberty Park in the Sugar House area, transforms into Halloween incarnate. Each year, the close-knit community of homeowners engages in an annual one-upmanship for the most over-the-top displays for a block party.
Giant skeletons, witches and Frankenstein’s monsters are almost passe on Wilson. This is Burning Man-level production with custom lighting and animatronics. The moms and dads set up fire pits and lawn chairs and crack craft beers while the kids compare notes where the full-size Snickers bars and are set free to roam the street, lightly supervised by the neighborhood collective.
We live in an era of overabundance of caution, and in many areas, the “trunk or treat” is a bland march in a parking lot from car to car. But the trunk or treat exorcizes all the thrill and darkness out of one of childhood’s most riotous good times.
Wilson Ave. belies that.
It reminds us of a time when we dressed as little ghouls, goblins, ghosts and witches, we braved the gloaming in wild, shrieking packs, fearless behind our masks and make-up, secure that this night was ours.
We belonged in the chilly fall air, the breeze creaking the skeletal trees, leaves crunching underfoot. On this night, we were in cahoots with the things that go bump in the night and the shadowy creatures lurking under our beds.
We junior demons could stride to our neighbors’ porches to demand candy with the threatening incantation: “trick or treat!”—which truly meant, “Give me some candy, or I will vandalize your home.”
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