Happy Halloween!

Coach B! and Fancy Nancy are about to take the neighborhood by storm.

Life has been on the far side of busy lately. So, we were kind of just trying to keep our heads above water when, suddenly, it was time to get dressed up for Halloween and go about begging for candy.  I have mixed feelings about Halloween...as well as having mixed feelings about people who have mixed feelings about Halloween.  Understandably, it's an odd place to be.  I have nothing against the spirit of the holiday--I don't think it's satanic--holidays are what you make them, not what select microcosms in society practice. 

For me, Halloween is an excuse to dress up in a silly costume and parade about town.  I like it.  But, knocking on strangers doors, begging for candy while giving nothing in return?  I've got issues with that.  Especially since my children could easily be described as: cute, adorable, beautiful...I may be biased, but I do not want my children thinking that people are going to roll out the red carpet and search their house for gifts any time they ring the door bell.  (In case you're wondering where this is coming from, just watch The Bubble episode of 30 Rock.)

Luckily, this predicament comes with an easy solution.  I drew on Audrey's propensity to pick, arrange and gift flowers and announced that we would be exchanging flowers for candy this year.  It might sound lame, but I'll take whatever I can get when it comes to teaching these girls that being cute is not an actual accepted form of payment in the real world.  Also, I secretly love living vicariously through my daughter giving flowers to people. 

 

We had plans on a much grander scale, but our schedule dictated that we stick close to home.  And it was fortunate we did.  Remember how I was just talking about trying to find new ways to imbed ourselves in our community?  What better way than to use your costume-clad offspring as an excuse to canvas the neighborhood, ringing doorbells and making introductions?  We got to talk to a lot of our neighbors, who we usually just wave to while in our cars or front yards.  Having the topic of adorable children to break the ice really helps.  We've got it easy...I'm just sayin'.

Another boon to sticking to our neighborhood is that since we're on a dead end with houses on only one side of the street, this neighborhood doesn't get a lot of trick-or-treaters.  Our neighbors were all ridiculously excited to see the girls out and about and encouraged them to take as much candy as they wanted since there probably wouldn't be any other goblins ringing their doorbell that night. (ok, so I do actually like the candy aspect of Halloween, I just don't like feeling guilty about it) The long and short of it is: the girls made a killing.

 

We brought our booty back home and while the girls were distributing it to family members, Calvin, the pterodactyl, brought his parents by for a visit.  The girls shared a sucker with him and he proceeded to run circles around our kitchen island, drooling cherry flavored slobber all over his white undershirt until (I kid you not) it was entirely soaked through and faintly pink-colored.  Fortunately, this was an excuse for me to get him into one of the girls Bomb Squad shirts.  I love this kid more than words or awesome saliva-soaked shirts can express. 

Overall, we were kind of slapped in the face by the actual holiday coming upon us quickly.  At the beginning of our evening I felt like we were just trying to force a mandatory cultural experience on our children, but we ended up putting our own spin on it and made it a great, spiritually fulfilling holiday.  Take that, naysayers!   I'm going to go steal candy from my children now...you know, so they don't eat it.  It's better this way.  Trust me.