Halloween

Ahhh, Halloween. Still one of my favorite holidays even though as an adult I don't really participate in it much anymore. Can't remember the last time I went to a Halloween costume party. No, anymore it's pretty much all about the kids. I enjoy watching them enjoy it though. But like a lot of my blog posts I'd prefer to write about what I don't like…I find that so much more therapeutic.

When I was a kid...uh oh, I'm sounding more and more like an "old fogy" all the time…in fact just using a term like "old fogy" makes me sound like an "old fogy"…. Anyways…as I was saying, when I was a kid my friends and I would put on a our Halloween costumes that our parents helped us make which ran the gamut from bloody ghouls and the undead to dressing as a hideous version of the opposite sex. Then we'd grab a pillow case for holding the massive amount of candy we were about to collect and when there was no trace of daylight left (usually about 6:00pm) we would head out to canvas the neighborhood for 3-4 hours, only stopping in our candy collection when someone opened the door to their house and said "It's late, we are in bed now, go home".

By that time we had literally covered miles of our neighborhood and we didn't have any pesky over-protective parents following us with flashlights. Nope, we were on our own, like herds of 4-5 ft tall candy starved ghouls roaming in the night. Occasionally we would be chased by egg throwing teenagers, which just made the night that much more exciting. Eventually though we would make it back to our homes where we would all dump our candy out onto the floor into giant pyramids of sugar and chocolate and begin trading for our favorites. It was so much fun.

Now this is not to say that my kids don't have fun on Halloween, but it's certainly not the same. I saw a news story on TV the other day about "Healthy Alternatives to Halloween Candy" where this woman was trying to show how to make fruits and vegetables "fun" for Halloween. I was thinking "Are you kidding me?!" For gawd sakes let the kids have one night of the year where they can feel free to stuff their faces with candy without having any guilt about it! They are kids! That's what they do!! I remember getting the occasional apple dropped into my bag and let me tell you it looked really cool exploding against the door of the house of the people who had just made the mistake of giving it to me.

I must admit that I have now become one of those flashlight toting parents that follow their kids around. I don't do it so much to protect them, but more because I just enjoy watching them run from house to house. Compared to my Halloween adventures my kids Halloween is pretty tame though. Each year we go to our daycare person's house because they have a Halloween party for all of the kids and families. They live on an island (on Lake Tapps) and there is only about 25 homes on the island so the trick or treating is very safe and self-contained. The kids are not allowed to wear scary masks because "they might scare the younger kids" - to which I would like to say "Tough! Deal with it! I don't care if you are only two years old!" But alas, I relent and we make Jake and Trevor wear only mildly scary costumes…Oooooh a scary Bumble Bee! Oooooh a scary Prince!

This year however Trevor insisted on being a vampire with black makeup up around his eyes…now dat's my Boy!! Halloween should be scary! It's about blood and gore and yes on occasion adolescent cross-dressing…and then loading up on enough candy to put an elephant into a diabetic coma. Hand my kid an orange and you can bet my answer to their question of "Do I have to keep this?" will be "Hell no! In fact show me how good your arm is and see if you can take out that pumpkin that's carved like Minnie Mouse".