12 Times Children Taught Adults the True Meaning of Kindness and Compassion


Halloween 2026 is still weeks away, but crochet baskets everywhere are already overflowing with orange and black yarn. Crafters aren’t waiting until the last minute this year either, with handmade pumpkin garlands, knitted cowls, and cozy sweaters already piling up on hooks and needles well before the first Halloween decoration hits a store shelf.
From amigurumi pumpkin patches to full crocheted cardigans stitched in classic Halloween colors, the community is treating this spooky season like its own dedicated crafting event. Whether it’s a small pumpkin ornament, a knitted fabric wall hanging, or a full handmade Halloween costume built stitch by stitch, these 10 trends show exactly what crafters are making ahead of the big night.
My son went to trick-or-treat alone last Halloween. Halfway down the street, he stopped and talked to a stranger. When he got home, I asked who. “Grandma. She comes every Halloween!” His grandmas have been gone for 6 years. “That’s not possible!” He smiled. “She said you wouldn’t believe me, and told me to give you this,” and held out a small button, worn smooth on one side.
My son was born after my mother passed. He’s never met her, only seen photos, including the one framed on our mantel of her in her green wool coat, handing out candy on our old street the last Halloween before she passed. I’d told him a hundred times, half-jokingly, “Grandma always dressed up as Grandma for Halloween, coat and all.”
I walked the route with him the next day and found the woman he’d talked to, wearing an almost identical green wool coat, bought secondhand years earlier, no idea it had once belonged to anyone in particular. My son had walked up to her, looked at the coat, and announced, matter-of-fact the way six-year-olds do, “You’re dressed like my grandma.” She’d laughed and played along, said something like “well, I suppose I’m your grandma tonight, then,” charmed enough to chat with him a few extra minutes at her door.
Before he left, she noticed a loose button on the sleeve, already planning to fix it that week, and on impulse cut it off and handed it to him instead, told him to give it to his mom as a little keepsake since he’d loved the coat so much. She had no idea it was, impossibly, an almost exact match to the coat in a photo she’d never seen. My son came home and told me, in his own six-year-old shorthand, that “Grandma” had come to see him, because in his mind, the woman in the coat and the photo on our mantel were simply the same thing. The coincidence still gives me chills.











