SaucyWench and the Village of the Damned

First, I need to say thanks to you guys -- moments after I published Monday's self-deprecating-yet-self-aggrandizing post, I felt like a serious tool.  In fact, I almost went back and took it down; but one of my very few self-imposed rules is that I won't take back the stuff that I post here.  So I let it ride, despite the fact that rereading it made me feel like I was literally begging for affirmation.  Your comments were kind, encouraging, and insightful.  You made me feel a lot better.  I'm not kidding.  I'm very grateful for you, and now I have several new blogs of yours that I'll be frequenting.
P.S.  If I start to feel sorry for myself on this blog again, feel free to slap me around a little.  Sometimes tough love is the only solution.  

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Now, moving on to what this post is actually about:

Halloween.

We love Halloween here on the S.S. Didactic.  Seriously, the whole family.  Big spooky Halloween love.  Ok, most of us love Halloween.  Two-thirds of us really, really love Halloween.

The Mini-Pirate and I put it right up there with Christmas as the best time of the year. To celebrate, we have several traditions:

1.  We light the traditional Franken-lamp.

Fire bad.

2.  We read from our favorite book of Halloween Franken-poems.

Buy this book.  I'm not kidding.  There's a poem in it entitled "Godzilla Pooped on my Honda."
Do you need another reason?

3.  And in the evenings, I rock my awesome Franken-pants.

Hands off, Ladies.  He's married!

But that's nothing compared to what my wife does.  Every year, SaucyWench breaks out our four giant boxes of Halloween decorations, and does the house up right.  She makes the place look great: decorations everywhere.  Fake spiderwebs, piles of bright orange pumpkins, grinning wooden skeletons, candles and knickknacks on every surface.  When she's done, the house is festooned in Halloween decor. That's right.  Festooned. Saucy creates serious Festoonage.

Part of the massive Festoonification includes the assembling of The Halloween Village, a kitschy ceramic cityscape that takes up more and more space in our living room every year as my own mother, sponsor of the village's urban expansion project, sends us new buildings.

The Village ("of the Damned," growls Saucy)

This badly taken picture only shows part of it, and doesn't come close to doing it justice -- we're talking about a true kitsch explosion.   It's actually becoming a Halloween Megalopolis.  It takes my wife hours to assemble: shelling each little building out of its styrofoam cave, arranging and hiding all the cords (yes, it lights up), and engaging in meticulous set dressing: placing the figurines, nestling the miniature pumpkins and trees, sprinkling tiny autumn leaves across the landscape.  It takes forever, and drives my wife crazy.  By the time she's done, she's exhausted, cranky, and in need of a stiff drink.  The killer part of it all?  She does all this despite the fact that...

...she doesn't even like Halloween in the first place.

"Why does the mean lady hate us, Bobby?  Why?"
"I don't know, Alice!  Let's get her!  EVERYBODY GRAB YOUR TORCHES!"

I wouldn't say she hates it, but it's not her favorite holiday.  She just doesn't have a lot of love for it.  But she knows that Mini-P and I do, so she goes through the trouble of decorating, of festooning, and of village assembly, every year.  She knows it makes Mini-P and I happy.  The kid jumps up and down and spazzes out when the village lights up, knowing it signals the start of Spooky Season.  And I dig it because I love traditions.  I can't help it.  I love pulling the boxes out of the garage every year.  I love seeing our house transform.  I too love our kitschy, ceramic village, just like I love Franken-lamp, and reading Halloween books with my daughter.

Thank you, Wife of Mine.  As always, you make every holiday special, every year.  What do you say I put on my Franken-pants this weekend after the kid collapses into her trick-or-treat sugar coma and show my gratitude.



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