happy halloween

Halloween is over. Thank God, but at the same time, boo. When we were kids, you put on your costume, went trick or treating, inspected your loot for razor blades, threw out the candy corn and then Halloween was over. I was excited about it, sure, and I loved going to Fabric World with my mom and picking a pattern out for my costume, but Halloween was confined to a single day. Now, there is this huge lead up involving festivals, zoo-boo, costume play dates--one neighborhood here even trick or treats the night before. Everyone's yard has been full of ghosts and mummies and monsters for weeks and in one particularly disturbing case, since mid-September. It's insanity.

I had a rule. No trick or treating until you can say trick or treat. You might say I am a Halloween Grinch. In years past, I was the one who would inwardly groan when invited to a costume party. I never decorate--just some mums, which promptly die. But a couple of weeks ago, Annabelle started to notice jack-o-lanterns in people's yards, which she calls "spookies." She seemed to really like the scary houses and was always craning her neck to look for the "spookies." So my rule totally went out the window. Plus, being able to say spooky is as impressive as saying trick or treat, in my opinion, at least. I was still annoyed with all of the festivities, but of course caved to the mom pressure of participating in the neighborhood Halloween play date/party.

So I was at the play date hanging out with one of my favorite moms, a totally laid back lady, really positive and fun to be around, and she has great kids. Her daughter asked her if she could have a cookie and my friend said "You know what honey? It's Halloween, so you can have as many cookies as you want." I was watched her daughter try to comprehend this information-- the look on her face was of utter shock and joy. And that moment made my little grinchy pumpkin heart grow and grow until it blossomed into the Great Pumpkin of pumpkin hearts. It made me remember how fun Halloween is-and I for a second had that feeling of frenzied excitement I used to get when I was a kid because it dawned on me "it's Halloween, we can eat ghost cookies with sparkles on them, we can eat candy, Annabelle is going to dress up, we can make a jack-o-lantern, we can go to a carnival, and trick or treating!!!!!!!!"

And so we did all of those things. And tonight I was a sexy mama witch in orange and black tights and a black dress--a perfect compliment to Strawberry Shortcake. Even Hyphen got into the spirit by wearing an orange shirt and black sweater. I told him he was a sexy warlock, but really he was just Hyphen getting bitten by mosquitoes as we were walking down the street.

Happy Halloween!