When Halloween's Over

That Halloween Residue post, and the comment by Bones, got me thinking about those quiet hours after the last candy is handed out and the display is torn down. Since the first year of the display, at the end of the night, my jack o'lanterns are pushed further back on the porch with fresh candles inside, then I turn off the porch light and watch them for a while. Comforting moments. In the years I lived there (that's my folks' home), it would be a neat feeling going to bed that night knowing they were smiling fire out there. Getting up the morning of November 1st (the worst day of the year by the way) to find one or two of the candles still lit and the rest melted like snowmen was a leftover treat from Halloween night.

In the years after I moved out of my parents' home, slowly driving away and looking back at the pumpkins on the porch until I can't see them any longer has become a tradition. Though the call on November 1st from my father saying "I just put your pumpkins in the trash, do you want the glass candle things inside?" has also become a tradition. A crappy one.

Here's a pic from the last set of shots I took on Halloween. I cropped out the flanking jackos on each side. Cool to know that each of my 13 pumpkins were burning all night long and into the early morning hours. I hope at least one of them made it til dawn.


Here's the full shot, at a different angle.