Halloween I, II and III

With apologies to Michael Myers, this post has nothing to do with knife wielding maniacs.  It has everything to do with the fact that Halloween now gives kids even more opportunities to start on the path to Type 2 diabetes than we had as kids.

This year my kids had at least three opportunities to don their Halloween costumes and carouse for candy.  Jaime had been proactive this year with costumes, asking the kids weeks in advance what they wanted to be for Halloween.  Kate had decided to be a princess (shocker!) and Davis had become fascinated by a S.W.A.T. team costume that he had seen (also not a surprise).  While his costume didn't actually have a toy gun, he was convinced that the nightstick it came with could actually fire bullets.  

Halloween I was our church's Trunk-or-Treat, which happened the Friday before Halloween.  This tradition  arose either because Halloween occasionally falls on a Sunday (and walking around the neighborhood dressed as a goblin or a vampire seemed, well, un-Sabbath-like), or out of the fear that somewhere, someone was going to put poison or razor blades in candy.  Everyone brings their cars to the church parking lot and, as the name suggests, opens their trunks; the kids then walk car to car and gather candy.  This means that instead of walking a few hundred feet between houses, the kids can take approximately four steps before reaching the next sugar dispensary.  And if they hurry, they can make it through the entire circuit two or three times.  When it came time to don their costumes, Davis wasn't interested in wearing his police hat, belt, cuffs, nightstick and radio - he opted instead for just his black shirt and pants. Who could argue with the low maintenance approach?  Kate dressed as a tennis player, and seemed to be a bit perplexed all night about how to carry both her racquet and her plastic pumpkin and still have a free hand to grab candy from the bowls that were thrust in front of her.  She was also disappointed to miss the kids' Halloween parade, because she was certain that she would have won the award for "sportiest girl costume" since no one else had a sports-themed outfit.

Halloween II was less about candy than costumes.  Our good friend and local photographer Julie Campbell had organized a fundraiser for Jamie Tingey, a local young woman who has been battling the flesh eating bacteria (go here to help Jamie) and was doing studio sittings of kids in Halloween costumes. We were glad to make a donation to help Jamie, and took the kids to get their pictures taken.  But earlier that morning I had made good on a promise to take the kids to the dollar store (it was payoff for some bribe I had offered earlier in the week).  My car's GPS didn't locate a Dollar Store, but did have a 99 Cent Store.  Same thing, right?  This is what I found when I arrived at the destination:

While it wasn't exactly what I had in mind, it did have plenty of things that cost less than one dollar, and the fact that I could almost touch the walls on both sides of the store simultaneously meant the kids didn't have to agonize over too many choices.  (I particularly liked that it was a 99 cent PLUS store - the proprietors apparently wanted to avoid the lawsuits that otherwise would have been almost sure to follow due to the few items that cost $2 or $3.)  Kate chose some angel wings, a wand and fluffy halo, and Davis got a suction cup bow and arrow set that also came with a very sinister looking plastic knife (see any patterns here?).  When we arrived home to get dressed for the photo sitting, neither Kate nor Davis was satisfied with their earlier costume choice, and both wanted to use their new 99 Cent Store gear.  So we supplemented their new purchases with some stuff from the dress-up bin, and headed to Julie's studio.  The kids looked great:

There were plenty of Halloween treats for the kids (and for dad!) at the studio, and we had a great time and were glad to be helping Jamie.  Of course, by the end of the day, Davis's bow and most of the arrows were broken, as was Kate's wand.  I guess you get what you pay for.

On October 31 (Halloween III), Kate had a party at school (where she got more candy) and then that night the kids again dressed up for the old-fashioned house-to-house trick-or-treating:

Kate wore her Cinderella outfit and her Nonna Anderson helped her with her makeup - she was in heaven.  Davis again said no to his cop outfit, and said that he was a ninja in his black clothes.  I tied a white headband around his head and we were off.  Our new neighborhood doesn't get many trick-or-treaters -- probably because there are only a few houses on the cul de sac, which is on a rather steep hill that makes the reward not worth the climb -- but all of the neighbors had told us that they were excited to have little kids on the street again, and would make sure they had candy.  Kate made it to the first house but heard their barking dog, and immediately retreated back home.  She is absolutely terrified of nearly all animals, even teacup-sized purse dogs, and didn't want to go to any house that she even suspected had a pet.  Davis followed her lead at first, until he saw that he would miss out on a lot of candy if he didn't buck up and get himself to the doors.  He quickly lost any fear of pets and went to work filling his bucket.  Kate was a bit more cautious but did go to doors once she was assured that the house either had no pets, or that all pets were safely secured in other rooms.  We visited our new neighbors, who were thrilled to see the kids, and then took the kids back to our old neighborhood, which looked like Halloween from my childhood: kids everywhere.

When the kids got home, they examined their candy haul.  While I persuaded them to part with a few Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, I had not yet learned about the Candy Tax, which some other parents have since taught me.  Next year, we'll use Halloween as an economic object lesson:  the kids will learn that the harder they work to gather candy, the more that we'll take from them.