A Halloween to remember
Good morning, afternoon, or whenever it is that you read this.
Despite my love of Halloween, I don’t do very much with it these days. I change my reading habits, decorate, watch Halloween movies and share a spooky snack board with my wife on the actual occasion. We sadly don’t get trick-or-treaters at our current home.
This year, however, my wife and I did something pretty spectacular for Halloween night: we went to Scarborough’s Hollow. In addition to the massive and (sometimes in)famous Texas Renaissance Festival down here near Houston, we have several smaller fairs all across the eastern part of the state, spread all through the year. One of these is the Scarborough Fair in the south Dallas exurb of Waxahachie, Texas. Normally it runs in the spring, but starting last year, they began a Fall Festival on weekends in October.
I’ve been attending various Ren Fairs since I was a youngster, and I introduced my wife to them while we were dating. Since then, we have never missed a year, and have only increased our participation. So, we packed up our costumes and drove to Waxahachie on Saturday morning for special Halloween festivities.
The Hollow Fair
Waxahachie is a lovely little town. There’s a cute, artsy downtown that leads out to a row of old mansions. There’s also the most uncomfortable hotel bed I’ve ever slept on at the local La Quinta. This time we stayed at a bed and breakfast just outside of downtown, which was much more lovely and only ten minutes from the fairgrounds.
We arrived at the fair just after 5:30, when the sun was beginning to dip low and cast long shadows.
We were greeted by a painted wooden arch of jack-o-lanterns that people were posing in for pictures. This then descended down to the fairgrounds below. We arrived hungry, as the fair guide had suggested, and went down to the Rose and Crown which presented me two of my favorite and often difficult-to-find options at a restaurant: muffalatas and shepherd’s pie. Ultimately, the shepherd’s pie won out. While we ate and had our first drink of the night, an older man next to us, just happy to be at the fair, interacted with us just enough to be charming but not enough to be annoying.
One of the best parts of any kind of renaissance festival is the people watching, and mixing it with Halloween adds an extra layer of fun.
It was getting dark when we left the Rose and Crown. The entire festival grounds were lit with string lights that made the night welcoming and jovial. Dark green and purple lighting was projected out from food stalls, making fetching something as mundane as a corndog feel like a fey bargain. Shopfronts were filled with skeletons, jack-o-lanterns, and ghosts among the usual selection of fair crafts. And Blackthorn Castle (Scarborough’s haunted house) rose up from a dark pocket of the fairground, cast in ominous, blood-red light.
There were a few more parts of the night that stuck out to me.
The Hollow’s Dancing Lights was essentially a covered tunnel lined with colored light bulbs that were synced to music. These kinds of strobe tunnels are always trippy, but throwing in the people in costume (some of whom had opted for more monstrous or gothic flavors) was wild. My wife and I went through it three times during our circuits of the park.
We found ourselves in the graveyard near Blackthorn Castle as the hour grew later. There were propane fire pits with colored glass, and marshmallows for sale nearby. I roasted a pair and we had our last snack of the night.
I haven’t been to a ren fest after dark in years. But the entire atmosphere changes when the sun is down. Arriving in the evening to closing gives such a surreal experience that I think I prefer compared to arriving in the morning. The string lights above make the night look darker, which also makes the eye see what it can readily make out with more detail. Everything takes on an intense, high contrast quality in the shadows.
The night was lively, but not crowded. I like my crowded events a little more quiet, so that's just fine for me.
We agreed that this had to be a new tradition. Even briefly losing the car in the parking field wasn’t enough to dampen our spirits.
Dia de los Muertos
We had a lazy start the next day.
We got breakfast in Waxahachie and drove into Dallas to go to the Bishop Arts District. Bishop Street is home to several boutique shops and eateries, and it’s my wife and I’s go-to spot for the day after Scarborough. We were pleasantly surprised to stumble into a street party blocking off the main thoroughfare through the district.
November 1st and 2nd are Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). Colorful skulls lined the streets in front of shops, and people grilled fajitas and served Mexican street corn while a live band played music and people danced in the streets.
We killed a few hours meandering through boutiques, including multiple game stores, perusing without really buying. We got a late lunch, then embarked on the nearly four-hour drive home.
Returning home
It was fun to get away for a little while. As difficult as returning to the real world was, I can safely say this was one of the best Halloweens I’ve ever had and a really solid weekend to wrap up what is considered one of the worst months of the year as a teacher.
Thanks for reading, if you made it this far~