First Winter Outdoor Party: A Bonfire in the Scary Cold

In today’s post, I tell a real story of Halloween in Alaska, and address how to dress for a winter outdoor party.

Updated: 1/3/2022
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Prologue: Unfamiliar with Halloween and Winter Outdoor Parties

When I grew up, Halloween wasn’t a thing in West Germany. Back in the 90s, some teenagers and students celebrated Halloween in East Germany, but they were less than a minority. They were more like a small group of young people who believed that the unification and development of Eastern Germany were going too slow. Admittedly, at the turn of the Millennium, when living in East Germany, you only earned 80% of the salary a person living in West Germany would make for the same job. You had to work 40 hours a week, while your colleague living in West Germany would work only 38 hours. In East Germany, many houses were still not rebuilt after WWII or were unusable due to deferred maintenance. Since Halloween wasn’t a Do, our first Halloween was in our first winter in Alaska when we still were learning how to create cold weather outfits.

A Weird Halloween Invitation

“Knock, knock.” I heard the messing door knock, and looked out of the window over the driveway. It was partly in ice fog, but the fog was not too dense to see that there was no car. “Knock, knock.” I saw a shadow of a loose dog, and then some tracks in the about half foot deep snow in the front yard. “Darn, we never thought of cleaning the way to the front door” I thought when I walked out of the dining room to open the door.

“Good evening, I am Lindsay, your neighbor from above” a tall curly brunette woman wearing Alaska jeans, Sorel boots, a wool turtleneck sweater, light Buffalo plaid wool jacket, wool mittens and a beanie. Some of the her curls were slightly covered with small ice crystals – a sign that her hair wasn’t quite dry yet when she had left her house. “Nice to meet you. I am Nicole. What can I help you with?” I responded while picking up our tomcat. He was about to start a fight with one of the three huge dogs that had dared to put a paw onto the floor of the entrance hall.

Candles on the Trail

When I looked up again, Lindsay held her dog on the collar. “We and the Schlossers are doing a Halloween party tomorrow and we would love for you to join us. We start out at our house at 8 pm with a party for the kids until 10 pm. Then we go down the trail to the Schlossers’ place for some hot drinks and chatting. The kids will sleepover at our house. My mother-in-law will be with them.”

“Thank you very much for the invitation. We will be there. What’s the dress code? What can we bring?” “Just wear warm clothes and shoes and bring your own mugs and a flash light. We will mark the trail from our house down to the Schlossers’ with candles, but that is more for our friends and colleagues from town to not loose the way in the dark. Are you ok with this?” “Sure, no problem” I replied now realizing who the Schlossers were, and that the trail would pass the property we were renting.

How to Prepare for a Winter Outdoor Party

On Halloween at about 5 pm, it started to get dark. We saw spooky flash lights along the trail that let down from Lindsay’s house. They came closer and then followed our driveway. Lindsay’s husband and their kids were dropping brown lunch paper bags along side the of our driveway to the Schlossers’. We know realized that the Schlossers were the family at the end of our driveway. We only knew them by the first names. From the Schlossers’ side we also saw light beams flashing thru the 100 feet (30 m) high black spruce trees. They looked like flags searching for bombers in old WWII movies. “They sure have better flash lights than we do” I thought.

How to Dress for a Winter Outdoor Party?

We were still a bit puzzled by the dress-code recommendation, but decided to follow it. However, we went for layers because we wanted to be able to take something off when needed. Why the heck did she recommend warm clothes? Don’t they have a furnace? Both houses were log houses. The spaces between the logs should be filled with insulation, shouldn’t they?

The only things that seemed to make sense were the flash lights and the mugs. The mugs would mean you don’t drink from someone else’s mug. Most likely they don’t even have as many mugs as guests. The flash light made sense as there are no street lights somewhere in the middle of nowhere where we lived since we rented after a long house hunt.

A Real Alaska Lifestyle Halloween Party

When we arrived at the party, kids in all kinds of costumes were jumping all over the place. They were just wearing the costumes, while all adults looked like they got a timeout standing in the small kitchen. They all were like they are ready for a long-distance dog mushing trip in the middle of January. At ten, all adults put their shoes on, bunny boots, Sorels, lobben boots and alike. So did we.

It was a clear night and the North Star was bright in the sky. The air temperature was -13 F (-25^oC). We walked down the trail that we had walked up in the dark of the black spruce forest earlier that night. However, now the brown paper bags all were illuminated by candles. They gave enough light to not stumble in the dim of our European flash light. I took a mental note to buy one of those that our Alaskan neighbors used. We passed the house that we lived in, followed our driveway, and then the candle-illuminated trail.

Realizing that We Were Supposed to Dress for a Winter Outdoor Party

“Maybe I was wrong about the Schlossers” I said to my husband when I saw that the trail lights went pass the house that I thought to be theirs. The trail led further down to the bottom of the valley to a small clearing with a large wildly flickering bonfire. Guests were standing around the fire drinking hot cider and hot red wine. They were chatting about outdoor life, guns and rifles, snow machines, four-wheelers, dogs, and their time in the military. “They” means both all adults, and my hubby was among them.

Being not an outdoor gal, I was bored by the conversation. Even worse, I was scared being out there in the middle of nowhere, in the dark and cold, standing in half a foot of snow (15 cm), in the hunting territory of wolverines and wolves. Thank goodness, black bears and grizzlies already should hibernate. I hoped they knew that!

Conclusions on How to Dress for a Winter Outdoor Party: Go for Hard-to-inflame Gear

I watched the about ten dogs that were playing around the area. I was afraid of them. They all looked heavier than I was. Huge huskies and some malamute mixes. I watched the guests moving closer to the fire as it burned down and moving away from it when someone just put some dead wood from the forest into the fire. “What a great application of the inverse square law of radiation!” I thought and just went for another mug of cider to warm my hands thru the shearling mittens. Finally, the mugs and dress-code made sense. Adding “Wear hard-to-inflame gear” would have given me the idea to dress for a winter outdoor party with bonfire.

At about 2 am, the aurora came out and danced in the sky. It looked like a spectacular ballet of green ghosts. With a sudden, I started to enjoy the evening – watching the aurora. It was such a great show of the fire sparkling against the black spruce and white snow background, and the green aurora curtains in the dark navy star-sprinkled sky. I was thankful for the invitation, and that no satellite passed while I was watching the scene.

Why Does this OOTD Work?

Obviously, I didn’t wear this look to the Halloween outdoor party. It’s just a look I wore a couple of days ago. This outfit is one of my eclectic style moments. The look builds on orange, black, light and medium brown. The leopard print sweater works as a neutral, but has a brown and black pattern on a light brown background. The pants have a plaid pattern in orange, black and brown on a light brown background. This means light brown is the grounding color. The puffer blazer repeats the orange in the pants. The black pumps the black in the top and pants. The sunnies take up the brown again.

Never worry again what to wear when. Just look it up in my style book How to Dress for Success in Midlife. Buy the book now.

Do you remember your first Halloween? What was it? Trick or treating? Did you wear a costume? Did you enjoy your first Halloween? Let me know, I love to hear from you.

Photos of me: G. Kramm

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