We’re Just a Bunch of Hallo-Weenies

Take a look at these beautiful pumpkins …

Eli’s is the Minecraft Creeper pumpkin, Elena’s is her own personal design, and mine are the painted ones.  Why painted?  Because I actually despise carving pumpkins.  You want to know what makes them especially beautiful?  I didn’t scoop out a single glob of pumpkin guts, and for the first time ever I was able to hand off the carving duties to the kids.  I wrote about it more on The Risky Kids, where I sing the praises of letting kids use real knives.

This is how we used our remaining pumpkins.  I bought this metal spider years ago at Stony Creek Farm.  I don’t get into decorating for Halloween, but plopping a few pumpkins on Miss Spider always makes me happy.

We’re supposed to get strong storms coming through on Halloween, so for the first time I can ever remember our community moved trick-or-treating hours to Friday evening. I’m fine with it, the kids are fine with it (trick-or-treating is always better on a weekend night), but other people? Not so much. I’ve been mildly amused watching the fall out on Twitter and Facebook. We’re raising a generation of pansies! Well, maybe we are a bunch of Hallo-weenies. But this mama, for one, is glad that I don’t have to play rock-paper-scissors with her husband to see who has to follow the kids around in driving rain and 40 mph wind gusts. Because I always lose at rock-paper-scissors.

This will be our first year celebrating Halloween in our new neighborhood. Rumor has it the neighbor gives out full-size candy bars. They should disclose these types of things in the MLS listings. That would definitely be a game-changer in my book. I’m hoping someone in this ‘hood thinks a keg is a Halloween necessity. If not, that may be my contribution to my little community next year.

Elena is opting to trick-or-treat with friends. The group of them are going as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. She has officially entered the phase of Halloween where the goal is to put the least amount of effort into a costume and still be able to pass as a legitimate trick-or-treater. This means she has a screen-printed t-shirt and an eye mask. I keep telling her if she dressed up as Dora she could probably trick-or-treat with nary a suspicious glance until she’s 22, but she’s not having it.

Eli will be dressed as the Headless Horseman. This is actually what he wanted to be approximately 48 hours before Halloween last year. The committee which approves Halloween costumes (which is really just me) denied his request due to insufficient notice. Kid was serious, though, as he has been on me to order a Headless Horseman costume since approximately 47.5 hours before Halloween last year, just to be sure he’d have it in time for this year. Order it I did, and he patiently awaited its arrival. And approximately 5 minutes after its arrival I witnessed the biggest meltdown I’ve ever seen over dress-up clothes. It’s a complicated costume, one that involves inflatable shoulder pads, a veil to disguise his eyes, and an ill-fitting rubber hat made to look like the child’s head has been severed. (It actually looks like a really juicy steak, and every time he wears it I start craving Porterhouse.) Well, the veil wouldn’t stay up and the hat smells and is tight and if you can see his eyes it’s not scary and OH HOLY HELL why can’t you be insert-favorite-superhero like everyone else? I think we have it figured out, though. It involves lots of double-sided fashion tape on his forehead, but it works. The only drawback is that once it’s on, he can’t eat, which means no dipping into the Halloween treats until he’s done trick-or-treating. That’s what you get for losing your head over Halloween, though.

I hope you have a wonderful Halloween wherever you are and on whatever day you have it. May your weather be nice, may no one smash your pumpkins, and may your kids bring home at least one Almond Joy with your name on it.