31 Oct Halloween Enchantment

At the end of October, 2012, executive recruiter Emerson Nagel and I were emailing each other about her current risk management job openings when she casually let it drop she’d be putting on a Halloween party (she lives in Mexico) for 250 kids in the neighborhood.

250 kids!!!

I was stunned, not to mention impressed, and said so. She wrote back with a description so charming, so filled with generosity and imagination, that I asked her permission to blog it:

“These are all kids from our neighborhood, mostly from families that have very little, and they really seem to have fun with it, though it’s quite chaotic. Over the years we’ve made 9 fair-type games: piranha tank grab-bag, pumpkin toss, that kind of thing….We serve hotdogs torn in half dipped in ketchup (bloody fingers), jamaica water (like hibiscus juice, which we of course call blood), and wannabe-Cheetos (fried worms).

“We give away 2,250 prizes. Then at the very end, we raffle off something. Last year it was our old TV; this year it’s a little stereo system I bought from a friend who moved away. It took me about 2 weeks to make 32 capes, which I gave away, with mask, in about 1/2 an hour! After 6 years, I now have a fairly reliable staff of around 40 8 to 15-year-olds who pitch in (for the modest sum of M$50). Anyway, it’s exhausting, but lots of fun – my daughter Katie (12) helps a ton, as does my husband, and our son Nat (14) grandstands in a 14-year-old kind of way.”

Halloween enchantment does not end when one’s children grow up, and in this case it got an early start. My sister-in-law, who is expecting her first grandchild, emailed this pic of the costume her daughter-in-law made for herself:

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Party Over

Emerson said, “Our party was a raving success, if I may say so.

“I finished making my costume yesterday morning (I was a praying mantis), along with the last of the capes (total around 80 I think).  The party was announced to start at 8pm, and the helpers were supposed to show up at 6:30.  So of course by 5:30 we were already ankle-deep in kids, and parents and grandparents, all sitting around and talking or running around like ants. By 7:30 it was standing room only.  I’d only prepared 250 bags/cups/tickets, and those flew off the shelf, so some kids had to play without bags, but didn’t seem to mind unduly.

“My helpers ran all the games like pros, awarding prizes as fast as they could, and the prize tables (manned by fellow moms and dads) were mobbed.  We gave out yoyos and tops and puzzles and Memorama and pick-up-stix and jump ropes and balsa airplanes and two huge garbage bags of stuffed animals (for the pinanha tank…), and a bunch of other cool stuff, along with about 8 tons of cool candies that either snapped, crackled or popped.  We ran out of everything by around 9:30, down to the last Cheeto crumb.

“Then I whistled and my helpers did all the clean-up in about 15 minutes – it was incredible.  M$50 is about US$4, and coincidentally the minimum wage for one DAY of work here, so I guess this seemed like a pretty good deal.

“It was so fun to watch all those little (and some not so little kids) playing the games, chomping the Cheetos, and generally pushing and shoving and laughing and having a grand time.  The littlest kids are the cutest, with their delight and innocence, but my particular favorite were the young grown-ups, who wanted to play too but were embarrassed to ask for a bag.  It was really incredibly cool.  Not a bone in my body doesn’t hurt right now, but it was worth it.”