Survived Halloween

This is the first Halloween in many years that I didn’t even try to “get in the spirit.” I didn’t give any serious thought about dressing up, and the only decorating I did was what I was instructed to do. A couple of weeks ago I hung a big spider web (with a huge spider) across our front porch, but within 24 hours it had blown down. The cotton (or whatever the web is made of) got wrapped around one of the porch columns, and I just let it stay there. I just haven’t felt in the mood for Halloween this year.

But on Halloween afternoon, I started getting in the mood. I left work a bit early to be home and watch the boys get excited. They were talking about what friends they were going to trick or treat with, they planned their neighborhood pattern, and they agreed on what candy they’d trade at the end of the night.

Before it got dark outside we had our first trick or treaters. The youngest children started coming up, and our boys sat out on the porch to watch the sun go down. When the night had arrived, they were excited and anxious and impatient. The got on their costumes, (a mix and match of various masks and robes and capes), and gathered up their friends from around the cul de sac. I put on my coat and went out with them while Wifegrit stayed at our house with her mom to pass out treats to our visitors.

I followed six boys around our neighborhood, with the help of one boy’s mom. They were all very good even though their excitement got the better of them a time or ten. Shouting, running, laughing, bragging, telling me what they got at which house, they were so much fun to watch. The streets were filled with kids all over the place. This year was like what I remember as a kid. Dozens of kids all around, in ones, twos, half dozens, with various moms and dads or both herding little ones or keeping up with the older ones.

It took us about an hour to cover the whole neighborhood, and by the time we made it back around to our house, the crowd had thinned considerably. Some of the boys sat down in our driveway to trade candy. I gave them about 15 minutes and then called my boys in for baths and bed, (it’s a school night). Everyone had fun.

I had wanted to avoid eating any candy that night, but I ended up succumbing to about half a dozen Reese’s Cups and mini Twiks bars. The next morning, the candy called me again, but I held strong. I thought, if I can just get out of the house and at work, I’ll be away from the sweet chocolatey temptations. But when I got to work, and went into the office kitchen to fix some breakfast, I spied this pile of candy on the table:

Oh God! Reese’s Cups! Kit Kats! M&Ms! Crunch! (Butterfingers, bleh.)

Surprisingly, though, I managed to restrain myself from grabbing anything. Then the emails started coming in announcing that extra candy had been put out in other places around the offices. Through the rest of the day I came across more and more candy everywhere. Everywhere! Oh my God! But still, I stood strong and restrained. I managed to not eat a single piece of candy the entire day. By 6:00 when I left work, every candy pile had been picked down to the bare scrubs.

At home, the boys had organized their favorite candies, and Wifegrit had taken and put away anything they didn’t want. Put away in some hiding places that I don’t even want to look for. God help me forget that there is candy somewhere in this house.

Bullgrit