Showing posts with label Halloween. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Halloween. Show all posts

Monday, November 2, 2009

Glimpses of Halloween

Monday, November 2, 2009
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Calvin and Hobbes emerged from Indigo Hill this Halloween. Liam is TOTALLY Calvin, and God love Phoebe for indulging her brother and thinking it was a cool idea to team up. We're lucky that our kids mostly get along.



First stop on the Halloween cavalcade of fun was the kids' elementary school (though Phoebe now goes to the high school) where we posed for a family photo. I think we'll send this one out with the Christmas letter this year.



Next we went to Clay and Ali's house for pizza and parent juice before heading out into the falling dusk to beg for candy from complete strangers.


The good houses had lines of kids waiting for their turn to mumble "triggertree" and hear the satisfying thud of another piece of high-fructose corn syrupy goodness drop into the bucket. We were pleased to note that we no longer have to browbeat our kids to say "Thank you!" to the kind candy givers.

Meanwhile over on Warren Street, WitchyPoo was doing her thing. Entire generations of kids have been scared spitless by my mom's depiction of "the witch." Some of these same kids now bring their OWN children by, just to experience Elsa the Witch. She says "Halloween is the one night of the year when both my drama major in college and my arthritic hands come in handy!"

She will NOT give candy to kids who are too young to speak. Or to "kids" who are old enough to be grandparents themselves.


Granny and Geepop's house is the final stop for all of the kids in our family. There the front parlor takes on the look of a frontier trading post, where all the candy is dumped out and the Twizzlers are traded for Sweet-tarts, Reese's Cups are hoarded and the Butterfingers are hidden from me.

For a much more poetic account of the evening, head on over to Zickland.

Friday, October 31, 2008

Happy Halloween!

Friday, October 31, 2008
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It's once more that most ghoulish day of the year!

No, not election day or tax day, my pretties! It's Halloween!

In the spirit (gasp!) of the moment, here are a few images from trick-or-treat night last Saturday (when folks 'round here celebrate Halloween, I guess to get it out of the way so they can start decorating for Thanksgiving).

The kids and I went to the elementary school Halloween party, then into town for trick-or-treating. It's pretty cool and nostalgic to take my kids to many of the same houses I rang the doorbells on nearly four (!) decades ago.

Many things are exactly the same now as they were back in the early 1970s on the streets of Marietta on Halloween night. The excited shouts of packs of kids trying to find the most lucrative candy stops. The crunching of fall leaves underfoot. The dog crap that someone inevitably steps in and tracks up the front steps. The smell of cigarettes from parents smoking beyond the pool of porchlight, watching their kids rake in the sweets.

(If THAT house gave you a Snickers Brittany-Jo, your mamaw's gonna need a bite! And that ain't optional!")

But then some things are different today...

The candy is better and seemingly more abundant. The costumes are better, too, but fewer of them are home-made these days. A few other differences I noticed: when I was a trick-or-treater there was always a foot of snow on the ground and there were wolves and Indians chasing us. Plus all I had for a costume was an old feed sack. Kids today don't know how easy they've got it!

Here's some eye candy of my OWN candy grubbers.


Liam at the school party as Batman in his store-boughten costume. For more on the costume decisions, see Zick's blog.


Phoebe as a blue-haired goth harpy. Liam as grave desecrator.


Campesino Man.


Julie's costume this year was ossum!

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Halloween Haiku

Wednesday, October 31, 2007
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Cracks in thirsty Earth
each step more precarious
falling screams not heard

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