Iman Amrani, a freelance writer and producer, has decided to embrace Halloween this year, moving past her usual cynicism to create moments of magic and connection for her twin toddlers. Her plan includes visiting a pumpkin patch and finally baking the pumpkin pie her mother used to make with her as a child.
A shift from cynicism to celebration
Amrani recalls that Halloween was not a major event in her childhood home, but she holds warm memories of helping her mum make a latticed pumpkin pie and an ugly jack o'lantern displayed proudly in the window. As she grew older, Halloween became an excuse for rides on her bike and parties in risqué outfits under the guise of costumes.
Now, she laments the commercial excess: mountains of plastic ghosts and witches destined for landfill, and cafe chains exploiting her olfactory memory with pumpkin spice in every product. The simple magic, she feels, has been lost, and she never followed through on making that pie.
Rediscovering the season's roots
Becoming a mother to twins has shifted her perspective. She is inclined to create some magic around this dark time of year, especially given the current dark times in the world. Her mum would teach that Halloween wasn't always an American celebration of commercial excess; one predecessor was Samhain, an ancient Celtic festival marking the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter, when the veil between the physical and spiritual worlds grew thin—a time for reflection and drawing loved ones close.
Last year, Amrani and her mother took the twins to a Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) community event in Margate, led by local Mexicans. There was Mexican food, music, and an altar where people could place pictures of lost family members and pets. The event felt fun, meaningful, and in the spirit of the season, reminding her that Halloween, Dia de los Muertos, or Samhain can be wonderful opportunities for storytelling.
Building resilience through stories
Reflecting on her own childhood, Amrani remembers when her mother's father died suddenly when she was five. Her questions multiplied, and she wondered why no one talked about the fact that one day everyone would die; the silence made it feel scarier. Watching the Disney film Coco, set in Mexico during Dia de los Muertos, made her realise how much she needed stories like this as a child to make sense of terrifying unknowns such as death.
The twins are still small but have loved library books with themes of witches, werewolves, yetis, and fairies. They have worn their bat costumes again to flap around the living room, moments Amrani treasures. Since the twins are remembering things now, she sees this as a memory-building era. She doesn't want an unrealistic to-do list or to contribute to unnecessary waste, but this year she is adamant they will go to a pumpkin patch to connect the season to harvest and nature.
She plans to make that pie, possibly inviting her mum over to help. "I'm still getting started on all of this but I'm going to embrace the celebration in the spirit that my mother did, and try to add my own details to the story," she writes. "Just don't expect anything from me at Easter."
