What follows is an interview I did with Emma regarding her thoughts about Halloween.
Ariane: What do you like best about Halloween?
Emma: The excitement of dressing up in costumes with no attention paid for oddities.
Ariane: There were a great many people out. What was it like to be among such large crowds of people?
Emma: Wanting to be a part of the crowd and not necessarily the same. There is acceptance in that.
Ariane: Did you like going from house to house and interacting with the people?
Emma: Yes, I like having one day when I am not penalized by strangers for being me.
Ariane: What else about Halloween that you like or do not like?
Emma: I mostly enjoy being with so many, on a night when individuality is celebrated.
Family Photo: (from left to right) Ariane, Emma, Richard & N. – Halloween 2014
Heading out while it’s still light…
Many others had the same idea…
Richard takes a seat. It’s hard work being this frightening.
A night when individuality is celebrated. (Random stranger who was happy to pose with dogs.)
The dead rises… and gives out candy to all who ask.
Heading home…
Emma's Hope Book 
Ooo you snazzy suit is nice! And I like Emma and Richard’s costume. I did not get to wear corpse paint like Shagrath. It needs to be Halloween for several more days. Also maybe I can get some more plush spiders.
😀
You guys all look fantastic and it looks like it was an amazing evening! Thank you for sharing it with us. 🙂
Thank you, we had a great time!
I wish I could have been there with you! I could have gone as an ancient wrinkled old woman with a cane? In other words, just as myself, and as Emma said, no one would have looked twice!
They wouldn’t look twice on any other day of the year either! Maybe you should move in with us!! 🙂
Great costumes! Emma looks so grown up! 🙂
Emma I’m so sorry that you feel like Halloween is the only time when your individuality is celebrated you are a unique and special individual and you deserve to feel that way every single day of your life not just on Halloween.
The more I read of what Emma says the more I wish I could meet her. Her thoughts on Hallowe’en are so much like what I said on a blog for the URJ (Union for Reform Judaism)
I missed Hallowe’en this year and I am truly awesome at Hallowe’en. It is indeed the one day of the year where I not only can move around in the world with ease but I am better at it than most. People who spend Hallowe’en with me always want to make me part of all future ones.
I have contemplated having it some random day because what the heck I did miss it but it would not be the same.
Her feelings about everything from crowds to not being punished for who you are and how on that one night and sadly only that one night there is a collective celebration that embraces individual expressions.
The freedom being in a costume brings would not in an ideal world be needed but it is indeed the one day where we can participate in the world, with people and it is safe to be us.
When I was more mobile I used to like to go to the Inner Harbour for Canada Day because while it was not Hallowe’en being part of a huge crowd is an easier way to be with people. You can belong in a way that is not possible in smaller crowds and groups.
But Hallowe’en is the ultimate day.
I have thankfully always been recruited by a new child as some “grow out” of it and I missed it so this year. I will never grow out of it.