When Would You Put a Second Halloween?

I love Halloween.

It's arguably the most unproblematic holiday on the calendar, a celebration unburdened by familial obligations, political considerations or religious overtones. It falls at a time of year where we desperately need a holiday, and–most important of all–it's fun.

I'm in the third phase of appreciating Halloween.

The first, of course, was as a starry-eyed child, enthralled with the concept of dressing up in costume and begging strangers for candy. After a sullen middle-to-high school lull, I graduated to the second phase, "drunk and horny", which lasted most of my twenties and does not require further elaboration. I aged out of that just in time to enter perhaps the most rewarding role, that of a nostalgia-filled parent of children still young enough to want me to go Trick-or-Treating with them, a time I relish.

One evolution remains, and that's for me to become Elaborate Yard Dad.

The second these kids shrug me off from their Halloweens, I plan to turn our house into a neighborhood landmark with king-sized candy bars, over-the-top decorations and covertly-served drinks for the adults. Heck, I might even roll one of my grills out front and serve brats or seomthing. I will be sad to relinquish my current role, but my enjoyment of the holiday will continue unabated.

As much as I love it, though, I know that no one loves Halloween more than my nine-year-old daughter. She lives Halloween. She spends the entire year thinking about what she's going to dress up as, often opining on it out of the blue months away from the holiday. Unlike her older brother, she's not even motivated by candy, but rather the sheer joy of getting to indulge in a night of childhood fantasy.

The other morning, she allowed herself a moment of preemptive melancholy for the passing of her favorite day.

"I wish there were two Halloweens," she noted wistfully.

And you know what? She's not wrong. We really could use a second Halloween. In these uncertain times, it would be a bulwark for our spirits, a bright light in the darkness, an extra data point in favor of me spending $300 on a giant skeleton.

But when would it fit into our calendar?

I have some thoughts.

1) A week after the first one

I always have my best costume ideas a day or two too late to execute them for Halloween, and invariably forget them by the time the next one rolls around. We could solve this by simply having a second Halloween exactly one week after the first one. No fuss, no muss: just leave the decorations up and just do it all over again.

Heck, we could make it a time to exchange our unwanted candies with each other.

2) The middle of August

PRO: There are no holidays in August. It's reliably warm. There's hours more daylight than in late October. Most kids aren't in school yet.

CON: The chocolate would probably melt.

3) The week between Christmas and New Year's

Say what you will about late October, but this is quietly the spookiest time of the year, a liminal space on the calendar where I become detached from reality and befuddled by the mere concept of linear time. A third holiday here would slot in perfectly between the other two, and give us something novel to do when visiting relatives. Sure, it'd be cold, but that would just give us a chance to develop cold-weather-specific costumes. It'd be the Winter Olympics of Halloween.

Speaking of–

4) On Valentine's Day

Every year, I see single people (not incorrectly) grousing about spending Valentine's Day uncoupled. Why not throw a little Halloween (Phase 2) in there to liven things up? Single people can go out and have fun while dressed as Sexy Labubus or whatever and make all the couples at their boring romantic dinners jealous.

5) Mid-afternoon on the First Saturday in May

This is not a new hobbyhorse for me; I wax on every year about how the Kentucky Derby is an ideal holiday because it happens at the perfect time for a party each year. Kentuckians know this; the rest of the world needs a chance to throw an early-spring bacchanal as well.

Heck, the Derby itself is already a costume party, with revelers dressing up as caricatures of 19th-century aristocracy. Let's just divorce it from the horse race and make that our second Halloween.

(Swing by my house, I'll be handing out bourbon balls.)

Friends, it's Friday again at The Action Cookbook Newsletter.

It's the first weekend-night-non-COVID-year Halloween in a decade, and my household is geared up to have a big night. Before that, though, I've got a jam-packed weekend slate of ACBN-Certified Good Things to share with you.

This week, that includes:

• Setting right what once went wrong, macaroni edition!
• A bloody Halloween cocktail!
• Some great music, a terrific book, pets and more!

Load up the wagons and fill up the insulated mugs. It's Trick or Treat time.

A historical vindication

A pall has hung over my house for some time now, the product of what I can only term "The Macaroni Incident".

Years ago, when my children were but preschoolers, I dared to try something I'd seen on the internet. I'd sneak something healthy by them in the guise of something delicious; I would make a tray of macaroni and cheese, but with pureed butternut squash mixed in.

"They won't even notice!", the internet promised. Like a fool, I believed it.

They noticed.

I swear it wasn't bad–I enjoyed eating it, I think–but that mac and cheese was soundly, Shermanesquely rejected by children who subsisted almost entirely on macaroni and cheese at that point. They made clear–as clear as children still in their Daniel Tiger years could–that under no circumstances was I to pull that kind of crap again.

For literal years after, we would have versions of this exchange:

"What's for dinner, Daddy?"

"Mac and cheese."

[warily] "Is it homemade?"

[defeatedly] "No, it's the blue box."

I didn't even consider making my own mac & cheese again until this past weekend, when we were having friends over for dinner. I was doing ribs on the smoker, and it was too cold out for any of my summertime sides. It just made sense.

I wasn't going to mess around this time, though. Not even the barest pretense of "health" was to come near this dish. I worked from the baseline approach I use on Pastitsio, long a family favorite; I wasn't after a creamy, sloppy mac, but rather a baked-together one that would come out of the pan in slabs.

With three different cheeses and nary a squash to be seen, I was finally going to win back my children's trust.

Dad's Mac, or: Quantum Cheese

(you know, "striving to put right what once went wrong")