It Was Halloween!

I know, I know. Halloween was, like, so two weeks ago. I’m sorry for the delay, but as you may remember, Halloween is my least favorite “holiday” on the calendar. Sure, you get to dress up like someone else and you get to act like an idiot, and sure, strangers come to your door begging for food (and we allow it) and the whole thing is sponsored and endorsed by the Devil, et al…. but I’m just not a fan of the pomp and spectacle of the night, the bravado entitled to those that dress up a super heroes and the fact that my neighborhood gets overrun with minivans hauling kids from the other neighborhoods. If there’s a bah humbug for October 31, then I’ll happily accept the title and wear a little badge, ensuring others that they shouldn’t wish me a happy Halloween.

The kids like it, however, which makes it fun for me, but I think they could even do with out it. For starters, Natalie doesn’t like chocolate which immediately cuts out about 90 percent of the possible loot, and Matthew still doesn’t get the concept. The first couple of houses, he didn’t say much, perhaps not convinced that he would get free candy by only saying “trick or treat.”

After only a few houses, they were ready to come home and greet people at the door.

For the house, I usually don’t do anything. Yes, we have a carved pumpkin sitting out…three actually, but that is usually it. For some reason, on Halloween (before I hurt my leg), I got it in me that our house needed a fog machine. Before picking up Natalie from school, Matthew and I went down to the “Party Store” to see about buying one. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money, so I was going to settle for the cheapest one they had. But once I got in there, they were having a 50 percent off everything sale, so the most expensive fog machine was selling for what I would have paid for the least expense one on a regular day. Win-win! Even the manager was surprised that HQ put everything on sale, as he told me they usually just store until next year what doesn’t sell.

I plugged a green light bulb into the porch light and fired up the fog machine. It didn’t really roll fog out on the ground like I wanted to, like dry ice would have done, but it still had for an interesting effect: a green haze permeating the whole front yard.

We spent a considerable amount of the evening carving our pumpkins, even though we already had two of them rotting on the porch from our camping trip early in the month. The kids brought out every pumpkin they could find, from the ones that Grandma and Grandpa had planted and harvested for them all the way down to the decorative squashes we bought at the pumpkin patch. We convinced them to only carve the big one and draw faces on the little green ones and spare the others so we can keep them for Thanksgiving.

They got their costumes on and we hit the streets in search of candy!

Above are some pictures of All Hallow's Even (and no, that’s not a typo).

How long do you think these two pumpkins will last? Some would say the answer to that question is that they've already passed their expiration date, but I say if you can still tell they're pumpkins, they're still good.

Look foward to seeing them on Christmas!