Nov. 1: Halloween aftermath

Alright, I’m trying to light a fire under my blog again, and have decided to attempt another blog challenge. This one will require much less thought because it’s mostly going to involve photos. Here’s the list I plan to loosely follow; if I feel like photographing something that’s not on the list, I’m just gonna.

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My favorite part of Halloween is handing out candy. The costumes, the littlest kids figuring out the trick-or-treating routine, the proud adults waiting on the sidewalk, the kids who recognize me from school and run back to their parents screaming SHE’S PTO!… I love it. We seemed to have more kids come by last night that in the past few years—the warm-ish, dry weather, maybe?—and it was pretty much nonstop doorbell ringing from 6-8:30pm.

Most of them even said “trick or treat!” when I answered the door—that’s one of my pet peeves, the kids who just hold out their bags without saying anything. They’re usually the ones who have mustaches and are driving their own cars from house to house. As always, our trick-or-treaters were mostly gracious and said “thank you,” rarely needing their parents’ reminder. I usually toss candy into each kids’ bags, but last night I held out the bowl and let them choose for themselves. It ended up being a fascinating peek into human nature. These are the types of kids we had:

1. Grab candy, barely even looking, and run off to the next house because MORE CANDY MORE CANDY MORE CANDY
2. Touch every single piece of candy in the bowl before choosing
3. Pick up one, then put it back and pick up another (sometimes repeatedly)
4. Ask if they can have more than one
5. Don’t bother asking; just grab a handful and run off (I did not like those kids)
6. Tell me they don’t like any of the candy and ask if they can have something else (I really did not like that kid)

I got lazy and didn’t do a lot of decorating this year, but Katie and I did copy something I found on Pinterest for our front door. This morning its hair was slightly mussed:

I especially like the sad little Sweetarts pack a kid left behind
(prob’ly the one who was dissatisfied with our choices)

We gave away almost all of our candy. The fact that most the leftovers were banana Laffy Taffy makes me think next year I’ll go back to choosing kids’ candy for them—at least then the leftovers are good.

Between getting Katie and Jack to their friends’ houses and keeping Lucy from eagerly greeting all the trick-or-treaters, neither of us had a chance to take a picture of our own dressed-up kids. Jack was a football player and Katie was an eighties girl (I did her makeup, thankyouverymuch). Big thanks to Stephanie and Val for these photos:

…and you can’t even see her righteous blue eyeliner with those gnarly glasses on.
Like, I’M SO SURE, Y’KNOW?

‘Twas fun this year, this Halloween thing. I miss having more input into my kids’ costumes, but that’s normal, I suppose. I still think Jack makes the cutest pirate ever, but he’s all WHATEVS, MOM. HASHTAG NO WAY.