A holiday gathering is an awesome time to celebrate what it means to value your local community. Every geographical place does celebration a little differently, and it serves as a great reminder of some of the unique quirks that make home home.
My family enjoyed the first holiday of the fall season, Halloween, with a little extra gratitude and excitement this year for what it means to live in the Northeast. After having resettled back after being abroad, it was our 6 year old Jonas's first Halloween. He had oodles of costume ideas running through his head, but finally settled on being poison ivy. Do a google search of poison ivy costume, and you will see about 4,000 images of red-haired women in tight green dresses. Good thing when Jonas' creativity gets going, it always comes with a strong vision and articulate directions!
Jonas' idea for a homemade costume ended up being the perfect way to support local. You may think I am ridiculous when I say that I am talking about Goodwill today on this local blog.
"Goodwill? But that's a giant nation-wide organization!"
True. But one of the main tenants behind supporting local is resourcing what already exists in your region. Reusing, reducing, and recycling are easy to do when creativity and the perfect Halloween costume are involved! I set out to Goodwill on Thursday with a list in hand for a pair of green pants, a green shirt, and a green hat, all sourced from local donations. Fifteen minutes and eight dollars and 97 cents later, I swung by my local art store and purchased two small sheets of green paper, returning home with everything I needed to help Jonas' homemade costume visions come to life.
We were happy to enjoy a beautiful evening in the neighboring town of Windham, CT, where our child did his first ever trick-or-treating and (random local tradition) flashlight-egg-hunt at dark in the town square. We saw oodles of fantastic costumes, happily ran into some great sets of friends, and got stopped by the local newspaper photographer who loved Jonas' locally-sourced, simply-handmade costume. Though I have a lot of happy memories that take place behind a plastic Halloween mask from Venture or Target, my child's happy memories are not only of his first Halloween celebrations, but of our time making his costume together at home, letting him see his creativity come to fruition in his own hands.
Locally-sourced fun? Extra sweetness added to a very sweet holiday!
