A lot goes on behind the scenes on Halloween.

It&8217;s not just a holiday about cute kids in cute costumes. It&8217;s about online shopping and trips to out-of-town malls. It&8217;s about sweaty masks and fleece dinosaur costumes on a Mississippi day. And it&8217;s about making it to as many festivals as possible.

The costumes at Trinity Episcopal Day School are of the elaborate sort. Students who dress up are required to be their favorite literary character to keep the learning theme going. And there aren&8217;t many plain Jane witches or ghosts that star in novels.

Instead, there is Cindy Lou Who from Dr. Seuss&8217; How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Frog from Frog and Toad, Dale Earnhardt Jr. from a biography of the race car driver and Thing 1 from The Cat in the Hat.

The students show off their costumes in a parade of characters on the stage in front of the older children and parents.

They also go trick-or-treating in the hallways. It&8217;s amazing how much loot a spin around the school can turn up. The children in Mrs. Harveston&8217;s kindergarten class had Wal-Mart bags filled to the top.

Halloween fun at Trinity lasted about two and a half hours in the morning. It came back that afternoon with a classroom party just before class ended for the day.

It&8217;s the in between time that was really interesting though.

At 10:30 a.m. Mrs. Harveston called &8220;no candy&8221; time. The children were forced to strain muscles hauling their bags to a safe location &8212; far away from them. Anyone caught breaking the no-candy rule paid the harshest of penalties &8212; spitting out a perfectly good wad of sugar.

Severe consequences? Yes. But a risk well worth taking.

Besides, Mrs. Harveston was being totally irrational.

&8220;When you grow up you&8217;ll understand why I&8217;m like that,&8221; she told them.

Once the candy bags were carefully tucked away into the nooks and crannies, it was time to survey the damage.

&8220;It&8217;s a giant mess in here,&8221; Sterling declared when he looked at the classroom rug. Candy wrappers everywhere.

On to the final task &8212; costume removal.

Elaborate, Internet-bought head to toe costumes can be a little tricky to remove. So it was slow going.

Girls needed help with buttons. Boys needed help freeing their ears from pirate earrings.

&8220;I don&8217;t know how it hurts, but it hurts,&8221; Gauge said of his gold hoop clip-on.

Costumes off. Uniforms on.

Back to work, Right?

I didn&8217;t stick around for the whole day, so I&8217;m not quite sure how much learning occurred, but Mrs. Harveston did note later that night that she &8220;survived.&8221;

And the children did too.

Tuesday wasn&8217;t a day for naps, even for the preschoolers. Too much was happening. School dismissal left just enough time to get back into the whole get-up, pile in the van and head to church carnivals or to go with the old-fashioned door-to-door method.

The candy should last six months to a year. But it won&8217;t. Most parents will be smart enough to divide it up, hide some away and refill when needed, but kids are smart enough to find it and eat fast.

Halloween scenes can be scary, cute or heroic. The characters make the day fun, but behind those scenes are real sugar-packed children &8212; children who itch, sweat, cry, twitch and get tired.

Tuesday was a long day.

But luckily the curtains are now drawn until next year. And the characters can rest.

Julie Finley

is the managing editor of The Natchez Democrat. She can be reached at 601-445-3551 or

julie.finley@natchezdemocrat.com

.