I am beginning my third decade as a Darlington faculty member and have raised four kids on Darlington’s campus. Being a campus family is an adventure. My daughter tells a story of a friend asking where she lived and she pointed at our house, which was visible from the playground, and said “right there.” It can be very convenient when someone forgets a homework assignment or an important piece of sports equipment. It can also be strange as holidays or summer break come and everyone leaves except for you. One of our favorite times on campus as a family has always been Halloween. As we approach the end of October, the sights and sounds of autumn and the approaching holiday of All Hallow’s Eve bring a flood of memories back to me.
In our family, the whole month of October becomes a Halloween festival. Picking out costumes, watching spooky kids shows and movies leading up to the day, and the beautiful fall backdrop of Darlington set the perfect scene. However, my children were always most excited about the 31st, which included a costume parade at school and then the ultimate event of trick-or-treating on campus with all the other faculty kids.
To start off the spooky festivities, weeks in advance the campus is adorned with all sorts of scary decorations. From dorms to houses, skeletons rise out of the ground; cob webs and giant spiders crawl up trees; pumpkins are carved into jack-o'-lanterns and displayed; witches, ghosts, and all sorts of ghouls are inflated in yards, and there are so many tombstones that the campus resembles a graveyard. The mixture of dorm and faculty decorations makes the whole place glow with Halloween fun. Standard Darlington Halloween events are planned and executed, including pumpkin-carving contests and something more physics-related known as “Punkin Chunkin'.”
On the day of Halloween, everyone comes to school in their costumes. Students in the lower grades have a costume parade for friends, parents and grandparents. The middle grades students create a theme with their advisory and dress in costumes according to their group’s theme. After the parade, the advisories perform silly/funny skits in their costumes sometimes set to music. The skits are judged and winners are declared. The whole day is hilarious and the experience is something students remember for years. At the Upper School, students are free to dress in costumes individually or with a friend group. Given the freedom to express themselves through dressing up, the students never disappoint and hilarity usually follows.
Faculty kids who live on Darlington’s campus don’t have a traditional neighborhood to trick-or-treat in, but that doesn’t stop them from experiencing the tradition and fun. Their night of trick-or-treating fun usually begins at dinner where they arrive in costume and interact with students and faculty, many of whom are also in costume creating a much more festive atmosphere than usual in the dining hall. One of my favorite photos of my youngest son is at this dinner with his fourth-grade teacher, who was also a football coach. They are standing together, hot dogs in hand, my son dressed as a ninja, and his teacher, who played offensive line in college, dressed as a pink unicorn.
After dinner, the kids and their parents gather and start the trick-or-treating journey around the campus. From faculty houses, dorms and apartments, teachers and students are there, some in costume, to greet the kids and fill their treat bags with goodies. Since the campus is all connected, the students can walk from houses to dorms, but in the past, we have also had hayrides that would take students and parents on the loop around campus. The next week, students talk with faculty about which kid was theirs and what costume they were wearing. The whole experience enhances the closeness between students and families who call Darlington home. The last house is reached just as the things are starting to get dark and the kids shuffle home to count their edible treasures. Our family tradition was then always to head back and watch “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” before bed.
Now, my kids are mostly grown, and the ones that aren’t in college yet are part of the process of handing out candy rather than getting candy. However, we will never forget all of the fun Octobers at Darlington. The fall leaves, the spooky decorations, and the fun of Oct. 31 will always be a part of our family’s memories. Life is full of change, but the beauty and fun of autumn at Darlington has always been a constant for our family, and I am sure for so many other faculty families as well. I hope that it is the same for our students, and that it always stands in their memory as just one of example of how Darlington is home.
