Saturday marked my first Halloween as a parent. I didn’t want to take AJ anywhere, but at the last minute we stuck him in a fuzzy snowsuit that had bear ears on it and trooped him to three neighbor’s houses. Since one of the three houses we went to on our street was a family member, and the other two have known my husband since he was a wee lad, I felt a lot more like we were sharing the cuteness of our baby in a bear snowsuit costume than trying to get free candy. (If there’s one thing I hate its people I don’t know, coming to my door with a baby in a costume, and no other kids in tow, trick or treating. We know you want free candy – we just don’t want you to have OURS)
A few words on the last minute bear snowsuit costume. As a kid, I used to have elaborate home made costumes, until the year that my mom fell down the stairs a few weeks before Halloween. We all were so busy getting her well that we forgot the big H was coming up. I ended up wearing a Dirndl that was hanging around my closet and said I was a German girl. (Seeing as we were actually IN GERMANY at the time, I had a coolness and originality score of negative ten). After that year, our family’s collective Halloween creativity petered out. In fact, for many years, I wore the same thing – a disco dress with rhinestone straps and stilettos. Glitter may have been involved. I had a short burst of creativity when Jason and I went as Fry and Leela from Futurama four years ago, and another last year when I was pregnant and we went as Juno and Bleeker. However, I’m afraid that AJ is destined for a long line of costumes pulled together at the last minute. (“But AJ, wearing Dad’s work clothes means you’re going as a VIDEO SERVICES GUY!”)
I was pleasantly surprised at how many kids we had this year (around 40) and how few had parents hovering at the bottom of our steps. There were parents out in force, which is fine, but last year it felt like we had a lot more parents literally standing behind the kids on our doorstep. What we did have though, is the Great Creepy Following Car. This is a new thing (to me, anyway) in which a parent will drop their kids off at the end of a street, and then follow them in their car to each sucessive house. To me this a) creates a hazard to all the happy walking kids – who let’s face it aren’t thinking to look for cars and b) is really creepy. I’m far more likely to ask nervously “Is that….your car?” to the older kids when there is a car hovering in front of my house staring at my front door than I am to laud the parent for thinking safety first.
I’m interested to see how Halloween is when AJ gets older. After reading Free Range Kids (the book AND the blog – read both now!), I paid a lot more attention to Halloween this year. I just hope he gets the same fun out of it that I did (and doesn’t mind the crummy costumes).
What about you? How do you see Halloween and how much do you think it’s changed since you were a kid? What do you do to make it better for your kids?
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