Happy Anniversary, Sleepy Hollow//October 166th, 2022

 When I was younger, I spent a lot of time wondering if I actually had a place in the world. 

I was an only child, quiet and shy, who never really fit in. My interests were somehow always all wrong in comparison to my peers, and my family, even if they tried not to show it, were often disappointed in the fact that I didn’t have “normal” priorities, from school, to socialization, etc. I was always the odd one out.

And, of course, there was the fact that my favorite holiday was Halloween, not Christmas as everyone around me and society as a whole seemed to insist it should be.

I also spent a lot of time wondering why I liked Halloween so much. There had to be a reason, some place that I really belonged that would one day call me back, like the little girls in movies who suddenly found out they were the rightful princesses of fairytale realms. I pondered this thought daily, well into my adult years.

In 1999, though, a movie called Halloweentown was released on the Disney Channel. Said channel was still premium subscription at the time, so we didn’t get it in my house save for occasional “free preview” weeks, but I immediately took note of this movie, while simultaneously trying to put it out of my head because I didn’t need to be depressed about a movie I couldn’t watch, about a world that sounded very much like the place I’d always wanted to be.

In 2001, though, the sequel was released, and I got to see a lot more press for this movie since we got an extended preview of the Disney Channel after 9/11; I suppose the network thought it would be a good distraction for the kids, because for quite awhile, there was literally nothing else on. I prayed we’d still have the channel in time for Halloweentown II’s release on October 12th, or at the very least, the day a couple of weeks before that when the original Halloweentown was going to be rebroadcast, but alas, if I recall correctly, the channel went scrambled again that morning. I was devastated, but I became so obsessed with the concept of Halloweentown and how it related to the way I’d always felt. Though I couldn’t watch the movies, I’d listen to them with the TV covered to avoid looking at the scrambled mess, and I researched them online. I was fourteen at the time, so I didn’t quite believe in the “lost princess little girl” concept that I did when I’d been younger, but I could never shake the feeling that I was meant to find my own Halloweentown; that it just had to be out there somewhere. 

I didn’t realize it then, but that place most definitely existed. Two-hundred-and-two years ago today, March 15th, 1820, The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow was published, and my own personal Halloweentown was officially starting to come into being.

I am often very, very sad about the fact that I don’t actually live in Sleepy Hollow. Maybe, hopefully,  someday, magically, I will. But for the time being, I revel in the fact that I’m not too far away, something I was never aware of until 2018, when I took my first trip to The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze. On that Halloween afternoon, I only got to take a quick ride through the town, but immediately felt at home, and vowed to return the following Halloween. There is truly nowhere else in the world that I would rather spend Halloween, or any of my time, and it’s almost crazy to think that none of that would exist if Washington Irving hadn’t written that story, over two centuries ago. 

Though I will never be able to see Sleepy Hollow fully as it was in the 1800s, whatever it was about the town that inspired Irving so much, I most definitely feel as well. I was almost scared to go back in the off-season for the first time, for fear that my perception of the place would be shattered without seeing it done up for Halloween, but going back during months that aren’t September or October has only made me love Sleepy Hollow more, and has made me more sure that this is the place I was always hoping to find.

I’d always been aware of The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow in all its many forms, from seeing the Disney cartoon as a child to swooning over Johnny Depp in the Tim Burton version when I was in my late teens, and then Tom Mison in the Fox TV series years later, and, of course, actually reading the original story itself. I don’t know why I never pursued getting to know the actual place sooner, but I suppose we don’t often think that reality can ever live up to fictional things we hold in such high regard. I had resigned myself to thinking that I was living in some sort of Halloween bubble that the real world could never penetrate, but I can’t even properly put into words how wrong I was about that.

To say that I am grateful to Washington Irving for writing The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow, two hundred and two years ago today, would most likely be the biggest understatement I could possibly make. How do you thank someone for feeding your soul in such a way, for truly creating the place where you finally feel at peace? It’s hard to fathom how different things would be if that one man hadn’t felt so inspired by one little town. 

And with that said, when someone inevitably comments, on this post or anywhere else I may share it, how much they think Sleepy Hollow sucks (See this post if you’re confused as to why I would say such a thing.) I will, as I always have, take solace in the fact that even if nobody else gets it, Washington Irving did.

And that’s why we’re here.

Happy Birthday, dear Headless Horseman. I don’t think even letting you chop off my head would be repayment enough for what you have brought me.

Stay spooky, my friends.