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The Lighthouses of Maine in Winter Light
Summer may belong to the tourists, but winter belongs to the lighthouses.
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There’s something deliciously magical about Halloween in a small town - the sweep of quiet streets, the patchwork hush interrupted by laughter, and the soft glow of jack-o’-lanterns lining doorsteps. It’s where memories are made through shared costumes, porch visits, and childhood rituals that feel carved from a slower, more enchanted season.
This is a love letter to those small-town Halloween nights - nostalgic, gently playful, and full of fond bones and pumpkin stems.
When I picture those Halloweens of my youth, I see cedar-shingled homes glowing under streetlights, and leaf-scattered driveways where neighbors perched on stoops passed out candy from sort-of-home-baked bowls. There was always that dose of small-town theater - the kids parading in hand-me-down plastic costumes; the chatter of adults comparing porch décor; the teasing of “Haunted Houses” cobbled together from plywood and “cobwebs.”
School gymnasiums turned into Halloween parties with punch bowls and crepe-paper streamers. Everyone came in costume - some homemade, some bought in a sack at the general store. It was a gathering where being seen mattered more than being haunted.
If there’s one image that summons small-town Halloween as clearly as glowing gourds, it’s Linus standing alone in that pumpkin patch - steadfast, hopeful, and spectacularly misunderstood in It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!
The special debuted in 1966 and swiftly became Halloween’s signature moment on television. You didn’t even have to have family in town; you simply gathered everyone around the screen for Linus’s vigil, the kids’ trick-or-treat caper, and Snoopy as the WWI flying ace. The music by Vince Guaraldi - especially the crisp opening “Linus and Lucy” - still flutters like a leaf in the wind.
In towns big and small, this wasn’t just a show. It was a neighborhood event. Kids would talk about it the next day at school - whether the Great Pumpkin would finally show, or whether Charlie Brown got a rock again. Local libraries, churches, and even town halls would host community viewings, projecting it onto retractable screens for families to watch together. In some places, the screening happened right on the town green - a pop-up theater for a pop culture myth.
"We'd bring blankets and thermoses of hot chocolate to the gazebo on the town common," recalled one reader from Enfield, Connecticut. "It felt like we were all waiting for the Great Pumpkin together, like Linus wasn't the only one holding out hope."
Another wrote in from Wiscasset, Maine: "One year the fire department ran the whole special on a makeshift screen outside the station. The fire truck lights flashed after it ended, and everyone applauded. I think I was seven. I never forgot that night."
These shared experiences weren’t elaborate, but they were meaningful. They gave Halloween a heartbeat that pulsed through the square and straight into our living rooms.
Across New England, small towns added their own flavor to Halloween. Many places held age-old parades or community pageants - even quirky relics like the “Horribles” parades, where townsfolk in satirical costumes lampooned local officials or indulged in absurd fun. In Rutland, Vermont, a comic-book themed Halloween parade has dazzled the streets since the early 1960s as one of the country’s longest-running Halloween traditions. Superheroes and villains came to life, merging childhood fantasy with community spectacle.
In places like Goffstown, New Hampshire, the Pumpkin Regatta became an autumn highlight - with hollowed-out pumpkins floating (briefly) down the river, carrying costumed paddlers cheered on by their neighbors. These weren’t haunted attractions, just expressions of local identity - Halloween as a mirror held up to the town.
It’s not the spooks or the frights - it’s the feeling: Shared vulnerability: kids ducking behind masks, bundling their cold cheeks. Collective delight: families waving as they judged costume creativity.
Enduring warmth: neighborly competition over jack-o’-lantern designs, cookie offerings, or evening porch hospitality.
It’s ALL the Great Pumpkin energy—albeit without actual pumpkins that fly.
Here’s a curated mini-itinerary to chase that small-town energy this October:
Start with tradition - Host a viewing of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! at your local library or community center. Encourage everyone to come in costume—even grown-ups.
Celebrate creativity - Organize a costume parade for kids (and pets!) through Main Street. Honor enthusiasm - snarky homemade monsters, and DIY royalty both.
Honor heritage - Host a “story’s best scare” competition. Invite elders to recall the neighborhood’s creepiest tale -from the haunted barn to that one porch that lets out laughter when pressed for candy.
Keep it local - Make tiny artisan pumpkins with your kids. Place them along sidewalks - like little Orchards of Hope.
