The German word for Grim Reaper is Sensenmann which is made up of the two words Sense meaning scythe and Mann for man.
When my 5 year old son Hagen heard there was a Sensenmann costume available for Halloween he got excited. We (his mother and I) on the other hand got a little bit disturbed. How did he know what/who the Grim Reaper is?
This is the first time he decided to go for Trick or Treat, all the years before he was too scared to go so we did not push the matter. Out thinking was: The secret will reveal itself somehow.
The time had come and we got the costume. Hagen sounded his confusion about the bones drawn on the gloves. And why was there a skull mask? Turns out, he thought the Scythe man was a gardener. He had no idea about the meaning of the Grim Reaper. So we had some explaining to do.
The mask was too scary for him and he did not want to cover his face with it as it makes him feel trapped, he said. When I decided to wear it instead he changed his mind again and said he wanted to wear it. But he did not want to try it on. We will see tonight whether he dares or not.
After a long talk about the meaning of Halloween and the Grim Reaper and all that stuff, Hagen wanted to go all in. He had saved a few bucks he got from visiting family members and decided to spend some of it on Halloween decorations. We agreed but limited it to 10€ so he would not spend all his money and learn to decide what to get on a limited budget.
When he and my wife came back from the store, he presented me his scary big spider.
It had cost him 5€ and his mother convinced him to spend the remaining 5€ on some crafting materials and a set of little LED candles. It would be more fun to create some decorations instead of just buying them and that way he would get even more decorative pieces out of it.
With some black pipe cleaners and cotton balls in combination with some shiny crafting threads he already had in his collection they created a few little spiders to keep the big one company.
A neighbor supplied us with some sheep wool to serve as spider web.
When I tried to point out to Hagen that his spider webs look more like patches of snow he replied it would be a good thing for that means we can keep the decorations out, serving as winter and Christmas decorations as well. Arguing with this boy makes me too proud of him too often. 😉
Even though the snails had a wonderful buffet in our garden (it was crazy this year, they went for over half of our harvest), we managed to get three little pumpkins through to October.
Thanks to the warm weather lately we had a nice time in our backyard carving them open, drawing the faces on and excitement got the better of Hagen when he was allowed to carve out the eyes and nose on one of them. Oh yes, excitement was with us as well, trying to guide his hands in a way he could not hurt himself and yet be free enough to claim it his own. Can you guess which one is his?
When Hagen proclaimed "We need bats!" and went off to his room without further explanation it was one of those 'I am scared because I do not know what he is about to do' moments that thanks to mutual support turned into 'Let's just wait what he comes up with'.
The sounds coming from his room suggested he was looking for something. Among his crafting materials he had some shiny metal covered hard-paper. When he found it and came back down the stairs yelling "Mommy mommy, can you please cut out some bat figures from this?" we loved the idea and suggested to laminate them so they can survive the weather.
I just hope that Batman does not suddenly show up at night. 😉
Was it the fascination of the laminating process? Or did he have the feeling not to be finished, yet? We do not know. But he suddenly had one of this inspirations again that just had to be shouted out. "A Monster. We need a monster!" he yelled and while running back to his room again he added "I'll make a monster."
About ten minutes later he was standing in front of me again with a rough sketch of a monster on brown hard-paper.
His mother helped him a little bit rounding the edges and then cutting it out. I laminated it and then Hagen put some eyes on it from his crafting box.
Two years ago most German states (including the one we live in) decided to declare October 31st a holiday to honor Martin Luther (not King) and the publication of his 95 thesis on that date in 1517. It is considered the founding day of the Protestant Church in Germany.
As a happy coincidence this means that Halloween is always a holiday and the kids can sleep in to be awake for Trick or Treat in the evening.
It gave this American tradition the final push to become established in this region.
The kids are excited to dress up and collect candy. And I have a reason to go scaring people with a (for me unusual) deep voice "muahahaha" out of the blue. 😁
Thank you very much for reading.
I wish you all a happy Halloween and lots of candy to collect. 🍬
All photographs taken myself with my cellphone.
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