Don't be sad when darkness comes - go a little bit mad, I say

GIVE ME A BREAK:EMBRACE the dark. Welcome it in, sit with it, listen to it, enjoy it. It's the time of year for dark tales and your own dark memories, writes KATE HOLMQUIST

The dead occupy our thoughts and the living come even more alive. It’s human nature to retreat into the cave, so embrace the mood with style, lighting candles and inviting friends in, or wallow with a weepy and a box of tissues. Act crazy over Halloween and laugh at death with a Hammer horror. Everything’s allowed, but whatever way you choose to embrace the dark, do it with panache.

There are so many good things about this time of year. Comfort food, the sort served in warming bowls that you cup in your hand. A lentil soup, or vegetable curry or a beef stew you’ve had bubbling on the cooker all afternoon. A hot pillow of Colcannon with a crater of melted butter. The sort of dish you love to come home to after a brisk, bracing walk.

You’ve wrapped up for that constitutional beforehand in something weatherproof, with a colourful scarf and a hat.

Every town has its popular walking spot where you’ll meet people to share a short chat with if you’re in the mood, although those power-walkers don’t stop for anybody.

It all kicks off this week with the children dressing up and the teenagers going mad with their sense of life and celebration. Last night, I saw a group of three in their costumes, struggling down the road because one of them had decided to dress in a very large duvet. The witch and the nurse on either side were forced to carry her mud-spattered “train”. People in cars waved and they waved back, everyone acknowledging the edge of madness that comes with the dark.

Go a little bit mad, I say. I don’t know what the fireworks will be like this year. One neighbour who usually puts on a good show seems to be on a daily quota of one rocket a day, nothing like the feeling of being in Beirut that we had a few years ago, but I really hope that the kid doing this is enjoying blasting off.

Acknowledging madness is what keeps us sane. Madness shared is madness halved, if you ask me. If you suffer from seasonally affected depression, it really is the time of year to look after yourself. The daily brisk walk, eating well, keeping in touch with friends instead of hiding away are essential survival skills.

In Scandinavia, they put light-boxes on their desks so that while they’re working, they’re getting their quota of sunshine. They have braziers lighting on the streets and candles in all the windows in a communal protest against winter.

Sad feelings can be overwhelming in winter, but there are lots of support groups around, and these groups have a lot more laughter than you’d think.

Slow the routine, take it easy, watch the fire blazing in the hearth, the candles lighting. Some of my best memories of being a parent are of everyone snuggling up under the duvet with a good adventuresome book and reading it to each other in instalments, night after night. And there’s comfort to be had in gathering around the flatscreen with a boxed set and takeaway pizza.

Darkness gives us lots of excuses to hunker down and look after ourselves and take pleasure in simple things. A hot bath by candlelight, scented with something nice. The lovely feeling of a pair of new cosy socks. Pyjamas and fluffy robes, in general, come into their own.

And then there are the hot drinks – a cup of tea never tastes better than from a flask on top of a chilly mountain. Or there’s the welcoming cup of home-made cocoa with real chocolate and home-made cookies, because store-bought never taste the same.

The traditions of lit candles, fresh-baked cakes and hot drink all come from times when people had to travel long distances, often on foot, to visit one another. Today, the distances that keep us apart are not geographical, so they are more difficult to understand.

We can phone anyone at anytime, we have the internet, yet getting together becomes expensive because continents separate us, or because we fear having people in because we think we have to impress.

This week, we’ll be pumpkin carving and making pumpkin bread and on Saturday we’ll have the sweets ready at the door for the trick-or-treaters, though I’m wondering if Swine Flu means we should be wearing plastic gloves and restrict ourselves to shop-wrapped sweets (home-made concoctions may just be thrown out this year).

The collection of Halloween decorations, becoming more bedraggled by the year, will be retrieved from beneath the stairs and we’ll have fun dressing up in silly clothes and with far too much make-up. After that, we’ll look forward to putting candles in the windows, not just for Christmas, but because we need to give each other light.