Lenore's All Natural, Plastic-Free Holiday Celebrations

There was only one rule: don't open the door. Emily stood looking at the unassuming wooden door, wondering why Lenore was so secretive about the back room. Was she afraid that Emily would learn her trade secrets and then start her own business? Or simply embarrassed about hoarding too many glass jars and reclaimed wood pieces?

Emily had landed her dream job at Lenore's ecological party and holiday business. Since her husband Jeff had suddenly ran off with a plastic surgeon named Kikki last year, Emily was left struggling to pay her rent.

Moreover, Emily had previously volunteered with a group trying to limit single-use plastic. The more she learned about plastic waste, the more passionate she became about the issue.

Emily was working at a Spirit Halloween store, surrounded by cheap disposable plastic in garish colors shipped all the way from China, when raven-haired Lenore invited her to an informal interview in her cozy shop filled with peaceful music, the smell of warm cider, and muted earth tones. The proprietress described how she used glass, metal, plants, cotton, hemp, wood, and silk to create beautiful, intricate designs. The daughter of the local mortician, Lenore seemed very down-to-earth..so much so that she always had garden soil under her fingernails ..the polar opposite of Kikki with her collagen-inflated lips and two-inch long red nails.

"I assure you, I NEVER even use plastic line to secure anything in my Halloween decorations," Lenore insisted.

Emily admired the table-top Halloween display. Pumpkins from the local farm, handmade beeswax candles, a "witch's brew" of mulled cider in a metal cauldron, beautiful pottery mugs, a cotton tablecloth ...and an "all natural" human skeleton?? Emily had heard of Hollywood using real skeletons before plastic ones became affordable.

She pushed against the forbidden door...