#more candy

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Ma Halloween Picture.

“Hee, thank yeh Cer…much appreciated.”

Lance smiled softly and accepted the box of chocolates, giving the girl a gentle rub on the top of her head to show his appreciation. The chocolates would be a nice treat later while he working or relaxing later.

“We got sum Valentine treats in teh back if yeh want anneh o’ ‘em.”

“Chocolate!!”

Cue excitement from the blonde as she takes the box from the other, clearly excited about the tasty treat. With that she gives Cerise a tight and happy hug to show her appreciation.

1-If you tell trick-or-treaters dressed like vampires that they only get candy if they say “Blah blah blah!”, they will enthusiastically say “Blah blah blah!” So will their friends. In certain cases, so will their parents.

2-Best trick-or-treaters of the night were the two kids who desperately wanted to set off all of our animatronic doodads but were afraid to get too close. Their solution? Throw candy at the various critters to set them off, squeal in delight and terror, and then do it all over again (after picking up the candy). They came by three times.

3-Best line from a trick-or-treater: When I informed one young lady (dressed as a witch, very regretful she had misplaced her pointy hat, very appreciative of the standard Dansky-Thielbar House candy generosity) that we had a cooler full of soda and beer for the adults and she should let her mom know, she replied, “Mom has a margarita. She’s doing just fine.”

4-Best part of this year’s Halloween: almost a complete and utter absence of teenagers without costumes showing up late and taking giant fistfuls of candy.

5-Worst side effect of the best part of this year’s Halloween: Being stuck with the entire giant bag of crap candy normally reserved for teenagers who show up late without costumes and take giant fistfuls of candy.

6-Lost track of the number of visitors who ran off screaming (briefly), but it was at least four. A good year.

7-If you tell trick-or-treaters not to disturb the monster in the mailbox (we actually had a motion-sensor monster in the mailbox), precisely 50% will avoid the mailbox like the plague. The other 50% will make a beeline for it.

8-It is nice live in the house that is THAT HOUSE every year at Halloween. This year has been kind of rough and intense, and I will not lie and say I wasn’t thinking about maybe taking a year off from the insane decorating we usually do. But so many kids - and grownups - asked Melinda or myself if we were going to decorate the house again for Halloween that it would have been impossible not to do it. And there’s nothing like hearing the voice of a kid from across the street saying “I want to trick or treat THERE!” 

9-Sad that our neighborhood has seen a decline in families driving in for the good trick-or-treating. I know some folks grumble about that sort of thing, but if you’re Grinch enough to begrudge a few extra pieces of candy, I feel bad for you. And I will maintain til my dying day that trunk-or-treats and Mall trick-or-treating are the devil’s handiwork; trick-or-treating is, at its base, a chance to meet your neighbors face-to-face in a way that our closed-in, highly personalized society rarely affords any more. To meet folks you might not ordinarily meet, under friendly circumstances. And to see that demonized by scaremongering and replaced by more half-assed consumer incentives or encounters with self-selected closed groups, well, it makes me wistful.

10-Bojangles fried chicken, while a Halloween tradition at our house, does not always go well with costumes.

11-Sharing Halloween with my niece and nephew, as well as my goddaughter and this year, one of my nephew’s friends, was a tremendous joy. And seeing the next generation want to get in on scaring our candy-seeking visitors did my heart good.

12-We do not decorate for the winter holidays. We put up our Halloween decorations the day of Halloween, and take them down that night or the next morning. The rest of the year, they take up 58% of the available space in my backyard shed. And I am okay with that.

13-Very disappointed in the post-Halloween “OH PLEASE GOD GET THIS TALKING GRAVESTONE OUT OF OUR STORE OR I WILL KILL MYSELF” clearance sales. It’s almost like retailers have gotten better at ordering reasonable amounts of stuff. 

14-Did I mention we still have a ton of candy left over?

15-It is an iron-clad law of the universe that if you reserve the operation of the fog machine for the tech-savvy relative who shows up last minute, said fog machine will in fact explode as soon as he plugs it in. 

16-There’s always room for another giant spider on the lawn.

17-Sadly, the timing on the “dangle the giant spider out the window behind trick-or-treaters” bit didn’t quite work out. Next year, dammit.

18-Judging from this morning’s cleanup, Smarties are the best candies to throw at monsters, followed by Snickers.

19-Was joined last night by family and friends, including an unexpected appearance from my folks. Halloween’s my favorite holiday; sharing it with people you care about just makes it better. Oh, and candy and scaring the dickens out of the small children in your neighborhood makes it best of all.

20-The Halloween Tree, by Ray Bradbury, remains my favorite book. You should go read it.

“You do realize you’re going to get a tummy-ache, right?” The ghost feline mewed, floating about the djinn, as she flicked her tail behind her. ((OOC: sorry for the derp a second ago))

My hubby's "work-wife" will be delivering us a whole bag of American candy and treats, that she brought us back from her honeymoon. I am very excited.

Sorry, did you think there was something else exciting?