By Amelia Tarallo
Hometown Weekly Staff
As the leaves fall from the trees and temperatures get colder, kids are more than ready to celebrate Halloween with a few festivities. And what better way to celebrate than with a witch and some seasonal tunes?
On Thursday, October 17, Elaine Kessler came to the Sherborn Community Center ready, dressed like a witch with a fancy cape and a big hat included. Armed with a guitar, some spirited sidekicks, and a glowing personality, Elaine was the perfect person to usher in the upcoming holiday.
During one of her songs, Elaine had kids go through all the different creatures with which a witch could go trick or treating. “Let’s all trick or treat with the witch and the cat,” she sung. The kids helped her by guessing the next creature in the sequence.
“A skeleton!” one kid guessed.
“Another cat!” yelled another kid.
When one of the kids finally guessed correctly, she continued: “The cat brings the ghost, the cat brings the ghost.”
The kids then guessed a bat, who brought a skeleton, who brought a goblin, who brought a green monster.
Using a prop, Elaine took out a green circle. “It’s a circle. It’s not even scary!” said one audience member. Elaine gradually added pieces to the monster, including two yellow eyes and a blue squiggly ear, making it scarier and scarier with each addition. She stopped to ask if the audience wanted to stop, because it was getting a bit too scary for her. “Purple scraggly hair!” she yelled, terror in her voice as she added it to the board. “Don’t look at it!” she warned.
“I’m looking at it!” shouted a bunch of kids, many giggling.
One of the last activities was to make an imaginary bubbling cauldron filled with soup. Elaine began by adding eyeballs to mixture. “It tastes delicious, but it definitely needs more stuff!” she observed before taking suggestions from some of the kids. Some wanted to add fairly normal ingredients to the soup, like vegetables and salt. Others went down the more witchy route and suggested grass, rocks, teeth, and hair. “Dirty rotten pumpkins,” agreed Elaine when one kid suggested adding the seasonal gourd to the mix. One kid suggested what many parents agreed was the scariest ingredient of all: “rotten bacon.”
Miss Elaine’s singalong and activities got her entire audience, parents included, excited about Halloween. After the event was over, kids were happily chatting about with whom they were trick or treating, and what they should add to their costumes.
“I want to draw a monster,” said one girl, as she walked out of the event.
Thanks to a little help from Elaine Kessler and the Sherborn Community Center, these kids are more than ready to celebrate Halloween.
