Well we were lucky here – the rain held off on Halloween night, so we had no drippy devils or soggy Skywalkers. It was a great evening. We have a nice custom of homemade pizza with our neighbors on Halloween night before trick or treating. Then all the kids started out together – Cruella de Vil, a dragonfly, a snowflake fairy and Spiderman. What a crew.
Tom and I usually wear some sort of a costume as well, but the past couple of weeks have been so busy I was counting myself lucky to get the kids set up in time. That’s saying something, as the amount of time I invest in a costume never amounts to much. Except about 4 years ago when Halloween was just 2 weeks before Hot Wheels was born. I decided it would be a good joke to go as a mummy. Have you ever been a mummy? It sounds so easy.
This year I had a flash of inspiration around a $3 pair of caramel colored boots I bought recently at a rummage sale. Nice boots. I’d planned to wear them on Monday with a black skirt and turtleneck and a caramel colored scarf. Then it hit me – save the outfit for Friday and I could be a black & tan! Thanks to Sarah Palin, it was a perfect year to go as a six-pack, and it got me thinking.
You could go as families: pull on a black coat and hat and be a porter, choose a slightly heavier friend to be a stout, wear flannel, a knit cap and boots and you’re a lager, grab a robe and thermometer and be an ale.
Or you could pick species: Red Stripe, Rolling Rock, Sam Adams… the options are many. It’s a perfect group costume and handy for the office since a good number of them can be pulled off without anyone knowing you’re in costume. I guess Sam Adams might be obvious, unless you work in the historical reenactment field.
On Saturday morning, the kids performed the sacred candy hierarchy ceremony.
It’s a bit of a bummer since Hot Wheels’ food allergies prevent him from eating any of the real A candies – no snickers, reese’s, m&ms, twix for him. But that didn’t prevent him from participating in the sorting. He gave all of those candies to his sister and she gave him her dum dums, starburst, dots and licorice.
We did discover one candy he can eat that I definitely would put in with the A candy – peppermint patties. (The small ones – the big ones don’t have the right chocolate to mint ratio for me.) We bought a couple of bags for our candy bowl last week, and after we came back from the store, we had this discussion.
“Mummie, after my lunch, can I have one of those crabby patties?”
“You mean a peppermint patty?”
“Yes.”
“Sure – but why are you calling it a crabby patty?”
“Because I can’t say peppermint. Wait a second! I can!!”
Later in the weekend, I took some photos around the house. We have a full-blown case of fall around here.
