All Treats, No Tricks

The City of Marco Island’s Spooktacular celebration came back to Mackle Park on Saturday afternoon, bringing Halloween-themed fun for hundreds. The only “trick” was finding a parking space.

A ghostly gaggle of boys and girls – boos and ghouls? – dressed in all manner of colorful costumes, monster masks and fairy princess garb, came and mingled under the airnasium on a beautiful day that was cool enough that those inside full body-covering attire didn’t suffer from heat prostration.

The Spooktacular, sponsored again by the City of Marco Island Parks & Recreation Dept., gave children of all ages the chance to dress up as someone else or maybe let out a side of themselves they keep buttoned up the rest of the year. And by kids of all ages, we don’t mean just the under-four set, who clearly have little input into how they will be transformed. Many parents appear to delight in playing dress-up themselves, and having children is a convenient excuse to wear a matching or complementary outfit. 

Kyle and Nicole Cholka dressed daughter Emma, three, as a colorful troll in a rainbow-themed wagon, then wore matching costumes and headdresses themselves. Trish Kolosso dressed her son Finn, five, as Jesus, which gave her the chance to wear the wings and halo of an angel.

DJ Chris Hogenson of Entertainment Source kept the spooky tunes spinning, with “The Monster Mash,” “Ghostbusters,” “The Addams Family,” and “Casper the Friendly Ghost” in heavy rotation, along with, for some reason, Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off.” Taylor Swift is now everywhere, so why not at the Spooktacular?

Ahead of actual Halloween on Tuesday, and in full daylight, children strolled around dressed as vampires, pre-teenage mutant ninja turtles, cowboys and cowgirls, skeletons, superheroes, pirates, and of course princesses. Kayleigh Kemmish, 16, covered both bases, appearing as a “pirate princess,” with frilly sleeves and a tri-cornered hat. Jheanicka Leonville, three, was the cutest imaginable butterfly. Sophia Parsons, six, dressed as a headless ghost in a long white nightgown and seemingly unconnected mob cap, turned heads – but not hers, which was nowhere to be seen. 

Some of the kids couldn’t stay awake, even sleeping through “Ghostbusters” blasting fifteen feet away. That was the case for Cabbage Patch Kid Blakely Radlovacki, whose mother, Manatee Elementary School teacher Alysha Radlovacki, came dressed sixties fashion as a “Groovy Mama.” The Recinos family gathered around Anthony, just two and a half months old, as he peacefully slumbered through the event. 

The focus was on activities rather than collecting or consuming candy. The kids lined up for the haunted house tour, for the hayride around the lake with volunteer drivers including MIPD Officer Will Prigge, for face painting, arts and crafts offered by the MIA Key Club, Putt Putt Pumpkin, all manner of tossing games, and the Mystery Bowl, where they had to differentiate between items identified as witch warts, spider legs, goblin scales, and ghost poop.

City Council Chairman Greg Folley, resplendent in a shiny genie costume, presided over the group of judges choosing winners in costume contests in each age group, but winning wasn’t really the point – everyone present seemed to be having a “frightfully” good time.