Open to New Traditions

Flannels, straw hats, black buttons, and a whole bunch of leaves… ah, quite possibly the greatest combination of items for celebrating the fall season. As a little girl, I carried on my annual ritual of knotting flannel bottom legs and shirt sleeves, stuffing them with crisp leaves, and sewing mismatched “eye” buttons to create Halloween scarecrows. I think the reason I adored making them was the earthly smell that arose from digging around a pile of fresh fallen leaves and the wonderful idea that I was creating something out of seemingly nothing.

When it came to trick-or-treating, my mom would hand each of my siblings and I a pillowcase and encourage us to decorate it to our liking. By far, decorating my treat bag is the most fun of all my Halloween memories. My mom would allow us to rummage through her scrap fabrics and fancy threads, and we would all sit around the kitchen table sharing lots of laughs as we plunged our needles in and out of our pillow cases and glued felts and ribbons to them.

As we got older though, we no longer had a need for trick-or-treat bags, so the tradition faded. Still, I missed the Halloween traditions of my childhood and wished there was a way to bring them back to life. Though I acknowledged I couldn’t go back to being a child, this didn’t mean I couldn’t change my ways to open myself to enjoy new traditions. It was in recent years that I created a new way to enjoy Halloween. Each year, sometime after Columbus Day, I begin to craft small treat bags to hold the Halloween goodies I hand out. Being a crafty gal, I look forward to this each and every year. With hot apple cider, I gather a few friends round my table and together we share lots of laughs as we color, paint, and adorn the sides of small paper bags with full Halloween fanfare.

Sue Zimmerman and Suzanne Chase have created a trick or treat project this year to help you start your new traditions, too! So, pull up a chair, round up the kids, gather up a few friends and start crafting new memories in celebration of the beautiful fall season!  

Enjoy!
Dennise