Halloween

What a difference a year makes! Last year, after years of limited access to American candy, Halloween loomed large as one of the most anticipated things about our move to the US. We had costumes ready, plenty of candy, home decorations, crafts…and surprise a new puppy, who we picked up on October 31. This year was a little quieter. Lots of candy consumption over the past year and no new puppy... though I did consider making it an annual tradition….

This year Halloween fell on a Monday. And it was just another school day. The kids were a little surprised that it was not a school holiday (although swim practice was cancelled). Phil called to see if he should come home early and we decided no. Royce was at a class, Tori was at tennis and Adam was playing basketball at a friend’s. No one was around and no one had yet to put on a costume. We did see lots of parents home early and walking young kids around early but that is no longer us.

We usually do a fair amount of decorating and we did this year …though mostly for the benefit of our German exchange student who was interested in Halloween. We finally got around to carving pumpkins the night before Halloween. It was all very subdued as Tori handed out candy to the two or three trick or treaters who came by our house. Once when I was driving someone somewhere that night, we glimpsed a side street filled with kids, including some little kid bouncing along in a full body dinosaur costume. We all looked a little wistful at that one kid and kept on driving.

This year Royce resurrected an old costume with a new twist. Instead of being a good egg like in years’ past, this year she went for a deviled egg, which quite frankly, is more appropriate. Adam went for a clown mask which was promptly nixed by his school due to recent scary clown sightings. He then  went for a Chewbacca costume I picked up. Tori wore an orange sweatshirt. But we all got excited about the dog’s costumes. She had three: angel, yoda (to be worn in conjunction with Adam) and lederhosen. She hated all three but we had tons of fun taking a few quick photos of her.

Royce went trick or treating with a couple groups of friends and got normal amounts of candy. Then Adam and Royce went out together and came home with copious amounts. We actually weighed Adam’s stash and it was something like 30 pounds. Royce finally told the story. Adam was “bowling” people, apparently the term for dumping the entire bowl of candy left out on the porch into his pillow case. Clearly not in the spirit of the thing but…We had so few trick or treaters and purchased so much candy, I would welcome someone bowling me. They finally did. We think it was Adam.