By Mermaid Jennifer
In the Halloween of today, the amount of new products being peddled can't be missed. Even a visit to the local home improvement store is an opportunity to turn your home into Halloween Manor. The simplicity of what started as a little pumpkin carving and walking around the neighborhood with your kids is now as prolific as the Christmas holiday.
In the suburban community of Liberty Lake, when Halloween rolls around, it hits you square in the face. Throughout our neighborhoods, full-sized blow up pumpkins and witches adorn front yards. People create spooky settings with gravestones and spider webs around their front doors. At the elementary school, on the afternoon of October 31, parents arrive early to nab a parking spot on the second most popular party day of the year.
There's no doubt that the holiday has been growing in both product and methods of celebration over the years. When I was a kid in the ‘70's it was just a plastic mask on the night of Halloween and some trick-or-treating around the block.
It seems that whoever has the most wax lips wins when it comes to Halloween of today.
Although not fully against wax lips, Corey Colwell-Lipson and her mom, Lynn Colwell, founders of Green Halloween, feel that it is time to intervene with the rampant consumerism of holidays. Before you start hiding away your lighted plastic pumpkins in fear of a renegade kidnapping, you should hear out this concept.
During Halloween 2006, Corey was out trick-or-treating with one of her young daughters when someone handed her daughter stickers instead of candy. As she was walking along, this marriage and family therapist got to thinking about how Halloween could become a healthier holiday.
The fight against childhood obesity was gaining more momentum than ever; but Corey was thinking beyond just the eradication of bags of sugared treats in our children's bedrooms. She immediately approached some friends and her mom to discuss ideas about how to make Halloween healthier, as well as better for our communities and our planet.
"The feedback that I immediately received was that it was time to change the way Halloween is celebrated," says Corey.
Mom, Lynn Colwell wholeheartedly agreed and the two began brainstorming and sharing ideas for the holiday. Lynn, a Jill-of-all-trades, has a background in publishing, healthcare, telecommunications, and performance arts. She is an idea person. At first she and Corey started talking about ideas. They didn't create a business plan right away, Corey even tried to pass the idea off onto Whole Foods, a local health food store in the Seattle area. "Whole Foods thought it was a great idea and offered to advertise or support the concept, but they wanted us to develop it," Corey adds.
Mother and daughter thought about the outcome of holidays like Halloween to determine how they could still be fun, but also good for people, good for the community, and good for the planet.
They note that while a completely "green Halloween" makeover is possible; it isn't something that they advocate. Instead, they suggest that people start in their own homes and consider the purpose of the celebration.
With regard to holidays, they ask, "Does stuff = love? What meaning do you want to create in your holiday?" If we are showing our love for our children by buying them plastic Halloween pumpkins and gummy skeletons that typically end up in the bottom of a sticky toy box, then is that love? They ask us to look at the lasting feeling we would like to have in our connections with family and friends. Thus, resulting in a celebration with less of an impact on our planet.
"Dip a toe in the water; its fun to try this," posits Corey. She notes that kids can be included in decisions on how to celebrate Halloween. Even young ones, like Corey's seven and four year old girls, can come up with great ideas.
So, in essence, celebrating a "greener" Halloween doesn't have to be dictated by what you can and can't buy, or by what you eat behind closed doors. It can be a great way to "think outside the candy-box" as Corey says. For example, with how you structure a Halloween party in your child's third grade class.
If you normally stock up on paper plates adorned with little witches and serve dozens of iced chocolate cupcakes, maybe you could simply bring in plates that you can take home and wash. Or, you serve angel food cake instead of iced cupcakes, and save on the paper cupcake liners. Perhaps you consider different ways of decorating a classroom. Bring in a washable tablecloth from home. Focus on music, games, and storytelling instead of gluing together 24 foam haunted houses.
This idea of making changes without abandoning a much-loved holiday has caught on. The idea of Green Halloween was picked up by a non-profit called Tree Swing, who now administers the program. In addition, other sponsors have grown to love the idea and are now helping to promote healthier kids and less waste in the world.
While adorning Halloween with a new way of thinking, Corey and her mom were inspired to write a book that provides a new way of thinking for all holidays called, "Celebrate Green." The book, now on sale at www.celebrategreen.net, offers a plethora of ideas for all holidays from the authors and also their readers.
So, how do you celebrate this Halloween? Lynn suggests, "Start in moderation and make better choices." The next time you walk into a discount store for example, take a moment to consider whether a life-sized cackling witch or a jumbo bag of lollipops are going to be the stuff that memories are made of for your family.
Here are some more ideas from Corey and Lynn about celebrating Halloween. View PDF
Comments
Post a Comment
There are no comments for this article.