Halloween 2015

The Last Time We Mixed Religion and Politics, It Didn't End Well.

It all started with Blithe Spirit.

In addition to Great Pumpkin and Sleepy Hollow, the pre-Halloween season on cable TV gave us some oldie but goodie films. Blithe Spirit, I Married a Witch, Bell, Book and Candle and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. But it was Blithe Spirit that caught Lexi's attention.

"Pleeeeeeease may I have a Halloween party?"

Party. Hmm. I had had plenty of parties in grade school, including Halloween parties. Why not?

"It would be so much fun! We could watch movies!"

Sure. Even if the TV had switched to Halloween or Friday the 13thtype stuff, we had plenty of DVDs and videos.

"We could play games!"

And Mother would probably lose her partial trying to bob for apples, knowing her.

"We could do a séance!"

"Ooooh!" Abby bounced up and down ono the floor. "I could read Tarot cards! We could Ouija!" she blurted out before Ducky or I could start to object.

I love Abby. I really do. But sometimes her open mouth/let words fall out tendency is a little hard to deal with. Especially since it's often 'this is a cool idea!' that kids will love and parents will question. When Ducky brought her home for the occasional dinner, there was always a risk over what she might champion. Halloween should have been a neon sign.

We had a lot of discussion about the party that night. Videos? Sure. Games? Food? You bet. Séance? Um….

While I like to think our friends and the parents of Lexi's friends are calm, rational adults, it's amazing how people can throw it all away when discussing ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night. So I approached it in a semi-sensible manner. I got a list of the kids Lexi wanted to invite and talked with the parents first. Most of them responded the way I would.

"Blithe Spirit? Ghost and Mrs. Muir? Ouija board and Tarot cards? Cool! Can I come, too?" (After three responses in a row like this, I hinted to Lexi and she said, "Sure!" to adding more people. After all, it was her party.)

A couple of parents surprised me. "Oh, Sandy! That's so dangerous! Evil spirits can come back through the board and possess people—"

My face probably broadcast my "Seriously?!" thoughts. I politely shot down every argument.

"This is a game. It's made by Parker Brothers and sold at Toys R Us. It's as dangerous as Monopoly. It's for two to four PLAYERS. It's just a game."

"Possession is a mental illness. There have been no 'cases' of possession in anyone who is an atheist." (Thank you, Fr. Parker, for that little tidbit.) "It's linked to religious, uh, fervor, more than anything supernatural."

Reason won out over superstition and we threw open the doors at 14:00 on Halloween and got stampeded by the rush. We put a poster on the front door that slowed them down a little. It had two kids playing with a Ouija board. "A-L-I-V-E…" "We reached a spirit!" "S-T-A-Y-I-N-G A-L-I-V-E…" "Oh, great, we bought a Bee Gee board!" A few hours later I discovered someone had printed out a picture from Facebook and stuck it next to the first poster. "You can be 8 and summon demons but you have to be 21 to buy a beer?" (I suspected DiNozzo.) But they both made the Superstitious Sadies laugh.

Several of the NCIS family had joined the crowd. Abby, of course; she was telling fortunes with a beautiful vintage deck of Tarot cards and a deck called "Gypsy Witch" with standard card designations in the corners (later on that night we used them to play gin rummy). Gibbs ruled the barbecue (as always) and DiNozzo and McGee kept an eye on the flow of DVDs. Ziva contributed by running the silly game chaos—pin the stake on the vampire, bobbing for apples held in midair from a pole (I'm not stupid enough to put buckets of water on the wood floor), identify the monster name pinned to your back, and so forth. Every so often a handful of kids and/or adults would gather around the battered Ouija board Ducky had unearthed from the attic; giggles and guffaws invariably followed.

Tony frequently oversaw these 'spirit gatherings' as only Tony DiNozzo can. (He must be a frustrated actor. It would explain so much.) "If there be spirits, speak now!"

"Or forever hold your peace?" McGee cracked as he passed by.

"Do not mock the spirits, McGhoul."

I shook my head and went back to the kitchen to whip up some more monster mash punch. (Just lime sherbet punch with dry ice. Very pretty color, plus the fog effect is fun.) Lexi and Charlie followed moments later to grab yet another ton of paper napkins. "Having fun, sprog?"

"Yep!"

"Okay on food? Movies popular? Games okay?" Affirmative answers on all fronts. "Raise any spirits?"

She gave me a wide-eyed look. "Yes! We got a bunch of messages from Darcy Goodfellow, the woman who lived here in Puritan times and was hanged as a witch!"

From her expression, none of the kids had freaked out. "Ignoring the fact that ghosts aren't real—you know the house isn't that old."

She grinned. "And Darcy Goodfellow spells the same words wrong that Uncle Tony does—the exact same way!"

Charlie batted her eyes at us both. "Amazing!"

I like to decorate for Halloween. I've done a graveyard, haunted library, and dragon's lair, among other things. The haunted library included séance and fortunetelling items and a couple of the parents wigged out as noted in the story. I was polite; I didn't laugh while I explained the fears were groundless. But the kids looked so embarrassed by the superstitions comments and grateful for my dealing with the 'rents. Pretending to believe is fun. And when I was in grade school, the ghosts always had the same crappy spelling my friends did. Amazing!