Stories at Halloween

Storytelling at Halloween

I’ve always struggled with telling scary stories, but I haven’t known why until now.

As a storyteller or any creative it’s good to know where your strengths lay. For me it’s in being very silly, very gentle, sometimes slightly gross but generally lovely. It’s been a good, reliable recipe for a while and has never let me down.

But one ingredient I steer clear of is fear. Fear adds a bitterness to the story soup that I just don’t want. Especially as I generally work with primary aged children. I have seen other tellers use jump scares and frightening imagery in their telling that have been so vivid and effective, not even a satisfying resolution at the end was enough to sooth the shock away.

But the hard reality of fear in the form of the pandemic has touched all of us, none more so than our children. We haven’t been able to shield them from it. To deny that fear exists and exclude it from my telling is doing the children I meet a disservice.

I’ve been drawn to the Mexican festival Día de Muertos and it’s approach to death for a while. Far from being a day of terror and mischief as our Halloween is, it’s a colour-filled joyful explosion. Commemorating loved ones who have passed with iconic Calavera, or sugar skulls, this festival acknowledges death and counters the fear it can bring with laughter and colour.

This feels so much more comfortable for me.

I took that energy with me when I was lucky enough to spend my Halloween afternoon with these brilliant loons pictured here.

We told stories, made potions, dressed up, hooped and danced to spooky rockabilly tunes in the Autumn sun.

We played.

We laughed.

We had a lovely, silly time.

I’ll choose foolish over frightening any day.

With everything our children have been through recently, (namely the world being turned on it’s head) the last thing they need is more reasons to be scared. There was no blood, no gore, no fake injuries. Some small people chose not to dress up at all, some tried to wear every item from the dressing up box at once!

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I’ve started to introduce crafts into some of my parties where we have a bit more time, on this day we made magical, sparkling potions and spoke about what spells we would use them to cast. This can be a really lovely way to allow children to speak about their worries in a safe space (if they want to) and give them the opportunity to make something physical that might help.

To make your own spooky potion

You will need;

• A small plastic bottle.
• Some glitter glue.
• Some food colouring in a different colour to the glitter
• A few little stickers.
• Some warm water.

And here’s how….

• Squidge the glitter glue into the bottle, enough to cover the bottom and come roughly one quarter of the way up.
• Add 2-3 drops of food colouring.
• Add enough warm water to fill the bottle (the warmth helps the glue disperse)
• Put the lid on and give it all a good shake.
• Sit and watch the glitter storm gently settle.
• Select a few stickers for symbolic decoration.

The small people I made these with covered their potion bottles with tiny glow in the dark stars and take them home too.. these soon became valuable treasures. For me they were a potent symbol of hope; a literal light in the midst of the darkest time..

There’s no right way to embrace the day, but I’m really glad my gentle approach helped them find their own way.

Today really was a happy Halloween, I hope yours was too.

(Permission from parents to share photos)

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