Hey boo! Hope your weekend was chilling and thrilling and a sugar rush of fun. There’s much to catch up on: crafts and decorations, frightening dorm floors, and the annual Candy Run. Trick or treating, and creative costumes, it all went by so fast! So step into our time warp, it will be a real spooky blast!
Panthers got crafty after the Garden Fair, with pumpkins galore to choose from, and paints and carving tools on the tables in the courtyard. Sierra N. ’25 and Max L. ’25 carved adorable goofball pumpkins and Quinn N. ’26 blessed us all with Perry the Pumpkinpus. Natalie K. ’25 painted a spooky scary skeleton to adorn her doorway. Later there was an attempt to build a gingerbread haunted house that quickly devolved into sprinkle chaos and frosting fingerpainting. Great British Bake Off, our DMs are open! Meanwhile, on North 2, Resident Faculty Crystal Jimenez and Jennifer Ablay brought their vision for a scream-worthy haunted floor to life… and death! We’re talking spiderwebs, crawling hands, red-eyed bats, floating candles, every eerie detail down to the playlist, and the positioning of a creepy cast of characters ready to startle candy runners at every turn. When night approached on Tuesday, Panthers began the countdown, grabbed bags, boxes, pillow cases, and headed to the courtyard to greet a special guest: Coach Fulton! He appeared for a surprise visit to explain the rules of the Candy Run and to catch up with familiar faces. Panthers ran and ran, collecting as much candy as they could catch, but they couldn’t escape the nightmare of North 2, where screams come true! On Thursday, they hit the streets of Sleepy Hollow after dark to trick or treat down winding paths, while a group trip went to a neighborhood party in Ross to ascend spiral stairs into a tree house fit for a frightful fairytale and every animatronic from the Halloween store. The night wrapped up as costumes became sweatpants, Casper the Friendly Ghost played in the background, and friends chatted around tables snacking and catching up, ready for the long weekend.
As if that weren’t enough, on Friday and Saturday Panthers and resident faculty celebrated Dia de los Muertos, gathering around the remembrance board and writing to our departed loved ones. After many days of sugar-fueled consumer fun, Dia de los Muertos brought us together over the significance of grief, and its transformation into gratitude for the lives of those who profoundly impacted ours. It was a welcome reminder to visit the dead just as they visit us in memory, dreams, traditions, and wisdom. In celebration of the dead, grief is not an alienating force, but rather an expression of love more powerful than death itself, something that connects us. Grief researcher and writer Malkia Devich-Cyril defines grief as “the opposite of indifference… an evolutionary indicator of love, the kind of love that guides revolutionaries.”
Panther nation, as winter settles over us, we here in boarding would like to offer an old adage in this moment of activated fear and grief: “Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”
– Rachel Greenmyer, Resident Faculty
Photo Credits: Rachel Greenmyer, Charis Adams