‘Twas the Season

Photo by Leigh Schwartz aka Mommy

Brenda outdid herself this Halloween.

Brenda outdoes herself every Halloween.

I know she would like her Halloween décor to stay up all year. The witches’ hats dangling from the ceiling, the slim Halloween tree (well, it’s a Christmas tree, but she uses it for Halloween – all done up with orange and black garland and dangling jack-o-lanterns), the lights inside and out, the plaque beside the front door advertising her “Dead and Breakfast” and much, much more.

It’s a lifestyle for her. As for me, an introvert pretending to be an extrovert, I follow Brenda’s lead and jump on her bandwagon. This year, I reprised my previous role as Severus Snape of Harry Potter fame when we handed out candy at work. She went as a hippie. No big surprise, since she is a hippie at heart.

Brenda gets nervous if Halloween decorations aren’t up by September first. She was particularly antsy this year because September blew by and she finally had everything up and out by the beginning of October.

We hit up the usual Haunted Trail, handed out candy from Tinder Box Myrtle Beach, the cigar shop where we work. Kids came out of the woodwork at Broadway at the Beach from 4:30-6:30. (No, we didn’t hand out puros to the youngsters when the candy ran out.)

Because we do this every year, Brenda knew that there would be stragglers, and she saved a half-bag of bite-size candy bars for the random latecomers – especially the tiny ones all dressed up like ballerinas, princesses, vampires and monsters whose parents either didn’t know or didn’t care about the trick-or-treating hours.

WELCOME, GREAT PUMPKIN

But it was The Great Pumpkin who stole our hearts.

Earlier in October, my daughter-in-law entrusted Brenda to take the reins for a planned trunk-or-treat at grandson Anderson’s daycare. Of course she was up to the challenge and hit the ground running.

The event was to take place on October 30^th, which would give Brenda and Leigh enough of a runway to get the ball rolling.

Brenda has a distinct talent for putting together things like this. She was the brains behind Wes’ and Leigh’s rehearsal dinner, which took place at their home.

Like a military operation, Brenda and Leigh were in constant communication, both women running errands and coordinating things like supplies, decorations, meetup times and more.

When the day came, Leigh’s vehicle was transformed into a pumpkin patch, the hatch wide open with pumpkins, string lights,  leaf garlands and more – with the gang from Peanuts set behind the Telluride with ghost sheets covering precut tomato cages at the perfect height. My nephew’s wife helped with the cages – scoring and cutting them to size and drawing the iconic mask worn by Lucy in “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” Brenda fabricated Shroeder’s coonskin cap.

You’d think the Peanuts gang was standing there, and you could almost hear Charlie Brown exclaim, “I got a rock….”

There was a table alongside the car, with goodies to give away – and the pumpkin patch extended onto the ground, in anticipation of The Great Pumpkin’s arrival.

And he arrived, dressed by his mother in the cutest pumpkin getup I have ever seen.

Photo: Leigh Schwartz

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• Grandson
• Great Pumpkin
• Halloween
• Trick-or-treating
• Trunk-or-Treat