I was inspired yet again today, by one of my 31 Shots of Halloween pictures on Instagram, to share a fun Halloween memory from my childhood.
Surely we all remember the Halloween Happy Meal pails that McDonald’s released in the late 80s/early-to-mid 90s, right?
Monster Creations recently designed the bag on the right, and I had to get a picture of it with my authentic McDonald’s McBoo pail. It’s almost as if the little pails that were so iconic throughout so many of our childhoods, grew up with us.
McDonald’s pails were among the first items in my little childhood Halloween collection. I believe my parents may have even had a few around from before I was born, or at the very least, before I was old enough to truly appreciate them. As I got a little older, they became some of my favorite “toys”, particularly McBoo here, and a witch that I named “Katta”. I played with them like any doll or stuffed animal, especially as Halloween neared.
One year, though, I can’t recall exactly when but I was around five or six years old I think, I got quite a scare from my Aunt Trish.
She had come over, as she normally did, for my mother’s birthday on October 30th. This time, though, she brought real pumpkins to carve, most likely the first time this had been done in my home, as my parents and grandfather had always painted pumpkins with me when I was very small. And, as embarrassing as this is to admit as a spooky, pumpkin-obsessed adult, when I first introduced to the concept of pumpkin carving, I didn’t understand it, at all.
I had been sitting on my parents’ bed, watching something, most likely a Halloween special of some kind, on their TV, when Aunt Trish came by. On the bed with me were all of my McDonald’s pails, plus some other Halloween-related toys/decorations. Aunt Trish was delighted to see them, as she had a tendency to always overestimate her levels of patience and precision with the Pumpkin Masters kits she insisted on buying every year, and started talking about how she wanted to “carve the face” of one of my pumpkins into her own pumpkins.
I completely misinterpreted this, and believed that Aunt Trish, the woman who introduced me to Halloween a year or two prior, wanted to take a knife to one of my beloved pails, and carve the face right out of it!
I have no idea how I thought that would even work, or what the point would be, but believe me when.I tell you, I freaked! I gathered up all of my Halloween goodies as quickly as I could and tried to hide them, and proceeded to lock the door to my parents’ bedroom with myself and the pumpkins still inside. No one could understand why I was so upset....I think the general consensus was that I just didn’t want to “share my toys”, so to speak, but there was a lot of shouting and knocking on the door until I finally let someone, I can’t remember who, in, most likely under the threat of Halloween-related punishment, and it was finally explained to me in terms I could understand, that my aunt wasn’t trying to destroy my things, and just wanted to copy one of the faces of my pumpkins onto her own.
Once I finally understood this, I was more than happy to offer up whatever I could find, even digging around for more Halloween-related things that may not have been on the bed with me when she arrived. I was honored that something of mine could be chosen for this exciting Halloween tradition. If my memory serves me correctly, McBoo was definitely one of the winners that night, along with a very happy, spongey little guy that I think was meant to be some kind of craft stencil.
Pumpkins with that “boo” face went on to become Aunt Trish’s favorite go-to designs, and therefore, pumpkins like McBoo will always hold a special place in my heart. But, to this day, I can’t help but laugh when I remember being so afraid that my beloved childhood Halloween collection was about to be destroyed.
Stay spooky, my friends.
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