Gemma Boothroyd shares about the differences in celebrating Halloween in San Francisco after moving from Canada.
The Halloweens of my Canadian childhood were cold and damp. And when a night is crisp, ghouls are simply ghastlier. The haunt is plainly scarier on a rainy evening. It all made for a heart-thumpin’ season. And on the night itself… the fear was a-brewin’.
Every trick-or-treater’s doorbell and knock would send me crawling under the dining room table. San Francisco Halloweens, though… they just don’t have that same scare factor. Sure, I’m a few decades older now. And maybe — just maybe — that’s made me ever-the-littlest-bit less afraid of Screamo masks and bloody clowns. But I think there’s more to my San Franciscan Halloween giggles than that. And I think it’s the sunshine-soaked whimsy of it all.
On a hot October’s afternoon, I spotted a romantically inclined skeleton couple. They were hand in hand — phalanges and metacarpals united. The duo was swooning, staring eye sockets into eye sockets, leaning over their balcony’s multimillion-dollar views. Right next to the bones in love, a towering 7-foot-tall animatronic witch was evidently casting a spell on her nosy neighbors. She patiently stirred her cauldron and took intermittent screeching breaks. There’s a certain je ne sais quoi to this city’s Halloween philosophy.
For a place that can take itself kind of seriously, it’s plainly wonderful to bear witness to a cluster of ghosts haunting a front porch, and cobwebs strewn across hordes of cacti. It’s part of (and perhaps, the largest part of) what I love most about my new city. It certainly could be — and has its moments of being — pretentious. But not right now. Not in October. That’s when the quirk runs free. Just for the laughs. Simply for a good time. With a Perspective, I’m Gemma Boothroyd.
Gemma Boothroyd is a journalist. She lives in San Francisco.