Has Sticky Fingers

     I went trick or treating when I was in high school.  I admit it. One year in high school (yes, I actually went trick or treating in high school more than once) we knocked on the door of this beautiful house across the street from our school and I couldn't help but comment, "I think your house is so beautiful, I always look out the window during class at your house."  So did the homeowner look at me oddly because I was stalking his house or because I just gave away my age?  Who knows.  To be fair, I was a Halloween purist.  I didn't believe in pranks or anything like that.  I was really out because I just loved to dress up (I was a circus that year, the next year I was a cowgirl) and go house to house getting candy.  I don't even remember liking the candy, more just the walking around in the dark with friends.  We could have been unruly, we just chose not to.

     Years past between my later high school years, college years and young adulthood before Halloween was able to regain its excitement.  I once tried sitting on my boyfriend's (now hubbie's) porch doing my coursework while passing out candy to young children.  None came.  Just a handful of big kids.  I dressed up in my cowgirl costume going to college parties where all of the other girls were dressed as Superwoman and french maids.  Once I got my teaching job, Halloween took on a whole different meaning- loud parties with swarms of people clogging the school hallways...   I barely had any energy for Halloween after that- not that it mattered because still, all we got at our door were a few big kids with pillowcases.

     Imagine my excitement when I had kids of my own.  Kids who love candy and any excuse to get more candy.  Imagine the thrill of getting to walk around at night again, chat with neighbors and collect Twix bars... Mmmm...  And so, Halloween has become a spectacle once again.  I have an excuse to make a Halloween costume again.  Just like when I was a kid and got the big idea to be a Cheerio box (and then painted the box all by myself) or a pizza (another of my creations, complete with a pizza cutter), now as a parent I get to concoct these crazy costuming schemes.  Usually it goes something like this: I get a costume at a garage sale and then convince Liam that that's what he wants to be.  I mean, seriously, one year I found him a fire fighter's rain coat complete with hat.  That's awesome!  It was a dual function costume for heaven's sake!  Last year I found Joshua's costume (a shark- seriously I didn't think anything could be as cute as a baby lobster costume, but this was) so I convinced Liam to be a surfer.  This year Joshua's hand-me-down was a dinosaur but I decided that it was a dragon and "quickly convinced" (that means strong-armed) Liam to be a wizard.  Only, there didn't seem to be any wizard costumes for less than $10 anywhere I looked.  I almost gave up and allowed him to be an astronaut.  I had him try on my bathrobe & his bathrobe but neither worked.  I returned to the craft store for the second night in a row and eventually settled on a shiny fabric for at 50% off a yard.  It still came to over $12 but as a poncho with a witch hat and my Suma Cum Laud (wouldn't it be really ironic if I spelled that wrong, in fact, I'm not going to even look up the correct spelling) rope tassel thingies he does look a bit like a wizard.  As a finishing touch we went with a white felt beard.  Only who knew that felt can't be glued together... so I just spent 20 minutes sewing glued felt together.  My hands are still sticky.
     Apparently the new tradition in my house is converting the basement to a haunted house.  We spent one afternoon as a family setting up the haunted house.  We hid monsters in the Bat Cave, taped spiders to the Thomas trains and made a series of tunnels using ... tunnels and blankets.  Meanwhile Joshua walked around behind us putting Batman and Robin on the train tracks, walking around with the brain from Ned's Head and pulling down every blanket, tassel and piece of toilet paper he could wrap his fingers around.

     Halloween.  It's one of those holidays with hidden (and not so hidden) costs a not-so-perfect crafter's nightmare.  A holiday where it's not enough to make macaroni & cheese- you have to make it in muffin tins with olive eyes and spinach legs (swamp creatures) or plain chicken- it's got to be chicken fingers, of course!  It's a holiday of cupcakes, candy corn, popcorn balls and apple cider donuts (I swear I heard a kid in school today say, "I just ate so much candy, I think I'm diabetic").  It's a holiday where licensed characters roam around your neighborhood (think of the Power Rangers, Thomas the Train and Tigger walking hand-in-hand).  And yet, if for just one hour on Halloween night I get to pull my two guys in our spooked-out Halloween wagon and we get to walk through a couple of cemeteries on the way to a neighbor's front door on a crisp fall evening... well, that just brings me back to the good old days (when I was back in high school).