Halloween

Whew, Halloween is over! The tacky part of fall decor can be taken down to make way for the prettier, classier stuff. Not that I have a whole lot of either kind of decorations in my house, aside from my beloved glowing orange leaf garland. But with a sigh of relief, I took down the paper ghosts, pumpkins, and witches we taped all over the kitchen. For some reason, Halloween felt like such a long ordeal this year! I have no good explanation. I'm getting old and cranky and I'm not quite 29 years old.

On Halloween morning at 10am, we had a few friends over to run a kids costume "race" in the soccer field behind our house. Mostly the kids just romped and frolicked around the big field, but we had a few little ready, set, go races across the field and one race that went all the way around the field--that only held the attention of the bigger kids. The kids played, the moms talked, and then everyone left. It was easy and fun. Amber slept through most of it. Right before the race, we did a kids costume photo shoot, with marginal success. One of the camera settings was a little off so the colors got kind of washed out.

Beautiful butterfly Rose--you can't see it very well, but she had pink eye shadow with sparkle gel on top, plus those stick on gems. She was very pleased with her sparkly-ness, although the gems fell off after a few laps around the soccer field.

Army guy Jay

And the little Amberry: the sweetest, juiciest strawberry I've ever tasted. She was about to take a nap so smiling or cooperating in any way was not happening.

Annnd the group pictures were even more amazing than I ever could've dreamed. Amber kept escaping and yanking on her hood, Jay kept covering his face with his pistol, and the camera setting was still too pale. Ah well!

Amber went to bed and the kids went out to the field:

The race:

I spent Halloween afternoon reading a certain vampire book that fit my mood quite well. Amber took an obligingly long nap and the kids watched Star Wars in the basement while Jeff was on the computer. I haven't been reading as much as normal lately, and it felt luxuriously indulgent to sit by myself and read a silly vampire book for two whole hours. It was a nice relaxing calm before the storm of Halloween Everything began.

This year we decided not to bow to the will of the masses of demanding trick or treaters stampeding our neighborhood. We turned off the lights at home and went to our ward's chili dinner and trunk or treat activity, which was at 5pm on Halloween  night. When I asked Jeff what he was going to dress up as, he thought for a minute and then his eyes lit up. He said "I'll dress up as a jogger and RUN to the church!" My one request was that covered up his tiny running shorts when he arrived, this being a church activity and all--ha ha. So Jeff left about an hour before the activity and ran the 10 miles to the church building. I felt very benevolent for letting him leave me with three kids to costume up and load up, a pot of soup to cook, and all the other odds and ends that always turn up at the last minute. But we scrambled everything together and made it to the church only a few minutes late.

When we decided to go to the ward activity, I realized that I wanted to wear a costume. Halloween grinch though I may be, I still like dressing up! I brainstormed my favorite famous people with short hair, and of course Julie Andrews instantly came to mind. It was either Mary Poppins and Maria Von Trapp. Mary Poppins is slightly more iconic and since she's practically perfect in every way, I chose her. I went to Goodwill with a few of her outfits in mind--I scoured the store for a suit/skirt combo and miraculously found a mostly-matching red blazer and pleated red skirt. Chim chimney it was! I found a perfect straw hat, spray painted it black, and tucked fake daisies into the brim. When my mom was here she helped me take in the plus-sized red blazer jacket so I didn't look like a sumo wrestler. The whole costume cost $13 (less than one 150-piece bag of candy!), since I already had a white shirt and black tights. On Halloween night I lit a few matches, let them burn down, and then rubbed the black soot onto my nose and face. We were in a hurry to get out the door, though, so I didn't quite do the soot-job justice and it wore off as the night wore on.

It rained at the ward trunk or treat, forcing everyone under the dark pavilion in cold clumps, eating a variety of chilis from paper bowls. I brought chicken soup instead because I was not in the mood for chili. Mary Poppins, the rebel. The activity was combined with the other ward that meets in our building, so it was packed, and I only knew half of the people. A random lady asked me what my name was and then left without introducing herself...weird, I thought. 15 minutes later, however, that same lady got up on a table and started talking in a microphone. It was hard to hear and I was off on the side talking to some friends, not listening, when suddenly Jeff said "you won! go up!" I was like..."I won what?" Jeff said "there was a costume contest and you won a prize!" Ahhhhhg! Great, I hate going up in front of people! And everyone was staring at me and I had to pick my way through a crowded pavilion without tripping and falling and it felt kind of awkward. I felt especially lame winning the costume contest because of how low my Halloween enthusiasm was this year, ha ha. And my friend dressed up as the most wicked amazing Cruella DeVil ever and she didn't win a prize. Costume contests are so subjective. Oh well, I accepted my baggie of candy as gracefully as I could and then escaped.

By 6pm at the church it was cold, wet, windy, and people were still in line for chili. Amber started really getting tired of her strawberry costume and being strapped in the stroller. Jay said he wanted to go. Jeff and I looked at each other and just like that, we were OUT of there. We missed the costume parade and the trunk or treating, but we were afraid that we'd never get out of that parking lot once the trunk or treating started. So we went back to our house and trick or treated in our own neighborhood after all. But we all went together! It was so liberating to just let ourselves all go out together on Halloween! We did the usual circuit: down the street to Grama and Grampa's house, and then across the neighborhood a quarter of a mile to Aunt Steph's house, gathering candy along the way. Our neighborhood was surprisingly patchy with which houses were open for trick or treating, so the kids only collected a few small handfuls of candy. It was also CHILLY! The temperature wasn't super cold, but the wind was picking up strong like it does around here and the little delicate butterfly Rose was shivering in her sparkles! We borrowed a jacket from Steph. When we got home, my kids' Halloween-grinch mother let them eat 2 pieces of their candy. They each got to pick out 6 pieces to save. The rest of it went into our bowl to hand out. Jay and Rose really got into the candy-handing. I didn't give a single piece! Our candy was gone in about half an hour. I only got 150 pieces this year, and Jeff saved out most of the Reeses, but still! Even on our fourth Halloween in this house, I still found the sheer number of trick or treaters staggering.

 Coming home

Amber sat on Jeff's lap playing in the crinkly candy bowl and drooling on a lot of it while he sat in the doorway distributing candy to the masses with the assistance of Jay and Rose.

In spite of my Halloween scrooginess, it was a good night. The kids had fun, we got to see our friends in their costumes, we managed to do all the Halloweeny-ness together as a family, AND the candy-handing was short. Funny thing: we never lit our laboriously carved pumpkins on Halloween. I left them in the trunk when we got home from the church and we were flocked by trick or treaters the minute we turned one light on, so we never had time to get the pumpkins out and light them. They were only ever lit once, on the night we carved them!

Good BYE, goofy Halloween, HELLO, superior November!