Trick or Treat!

Trick or Treat!
Originally uploaded by Cheryl Rollman.

Another Halloween has come and gone. This year was definitely a good year in that it wasn't too stressful come Trick-or-Treat time.

G-man was the cutest dinosaur in the world and Lil Miss Austin was a hodge-podge fairy princess. Her original costume was Cinderella but Super Dad washed the thing and it fell apart. That'll learn me for not reading washing directions. Who makes a kids costume you can't put in a washing machine, anyway? It probably had lead it as it is.

Anywhoosits, we were all ready to hit our street for a bit and then go see the Aunt and Uncle in Cedar Park who had decorated their house for the big night. Well, as I was putting out our pumpkins and a bowl of candy with a "please just take one" sign, the dog got out. I didn't see her get out, she must have bolted while I was inside getting a pen. So Ms. A dropped us off at the end of our street and the kids and I hit some houses while she went on a bad dog hunt.

The dog was found, my phone survived being on top of her car for about an hour and the kids had fun. Turns out, our street kicked total ass. We only had to go two blocks and we had full bags. Every other house was decorated and had people standing in driveways handing out candy. Most of time you didn't even have to knock. Even the adults walking with their kids were dressed up in some really nice costumes. And there were people everywhere. It was like a block party, I couldn't believe it. We were actually worried that because we were on a main street that's kind of busy and that because it's always been a relatively quiet subdivision that it was going to be lame. It was not.

By contrast, Aunt and Uncle CP's neighborhood was like a ghost town. They had craftily dressed up their house with webs and graves and general ghoulishness and there was another house that had apparently gone all out to create an almost Disney-like tableau of horrors, but other than that it was pretty dead. It's odd what some neighborhoods and streets will or won't do. It'll be interesting to see what kind of yuletide decorations come up.

We left their house, hit an Applebees and got some dinner and then went home and crashed. Ms. A stayed up till probably 3am working (as usual.) And that was it.

I don't have my entries from last year, but I'm sure I pissed and moaned about how Halloween is my favorite holiday but I never get as involved as I'd like. It just seems that every time October 31st rolls around, our family is in some kind of turmoil that really prevents us from going all out on costumes or decorations. I haven't been to a costume party since Houston and this spring we had a garage sale and got rid of our box of general holiday decorations. The kids costumes only came in this last weekend and one was destroyed.

I'd really like to make up the yard at the very least. I would love to make tombstones and zombies and things hanging off the roof and have spooky music piped out front with a smoke machine or a dry ice pool or something, and have it all lit up with spots or strobes. I don't want to be that house that had over 3000 jack-o-lanterns, that's just insane. But I do feel sad each time November 1st rolls around and all I have left to do is eat all the kids chocolate and throw pumpkins away.

Someone help me remember to start in August next year.

And for all you Christians, happy All Saints' Day.

Carry on.