Happy Halloween!

This is Halloween weekend and I am stoked! I love this holiday almost as much as Christmas and the funny thing is that I do very little for this holiday. Well, little is relative, I guess.

For the past few years, my sister and I have put on costumes to hand out our trick or treat candy. We sit outside and swarms of kids come to our house. I love thinking of what we can be each year. One year we were the creepiest clowns ever! And I hate clowns. Last year, we got Alex into the act and we were two zombie brides and he was the zombie groom. We looked creepy and, most appropriately, dead! This year, in honor of Alex's Swedishness, we three are going to be Vikings! And not the purple Minnesota loser football kind either. We're going to be the horned helmet wearing, sword bearing, fur covered kind. I have about half a costume right now and yards of fake fur that I have to contend with yet but, rest assured, by Trick or Treat time tomorrow, we'll be ready!

This year we carved some jack o'lanterns too. I haven't done that in a while because that's always been more fun if someone is there to do it with you and this year someone was. I ended up doing both but they turned out pretty good, in my own humble opinion. They're out on the porch right now, awaiting the tea lights so they can glow in the Halloween night!

I remember looking forward to Halloween as a kid. We rarely spent a dime on our costumes. If we had anything purchased it was usually a mask of some sort. Everything else was left to us and Mom to create. One year I was Batman. The old Adam West Batman too...not the new Christian Bale Batman. I had a mask. That was it. My mom made a cape out of an old towel and my Dad let me wear his old tool belt for the Batman utility belt. The thing was, everybody knew exactly who I was supposed to be and they thought my costume was great! So did I. I wore it around the house until Thanksgiving!

Trick or Treating back then wasn't during special hours or during the day, for that matter. We freely scoured all of Kenosha, parent-free, with not just a small pumpkin candy bag but a huge pillow case and by the time we were done we had been to the far ends of town and that pillow case was full! Mom would go through all of the candy when we got home but homemade treats were okay to eat and most of them were delicious! I used to hate the people that gave out raisins. RAISINS! Really? EW.
Of course, our town was smaller back then and we knew mostly everyone in it. People were more trustworthy then. Or were they really? Or was it just that we were less scared of each other. We live in a world of media that keeps us on high alert at all times. It's no wonder we won't eat a cookie made by our neighbors. They're probably murderers, child molesters, or terrorists. Funny thing is, in my entire life, I have never personally known or even heard of anyone in our town that has been harmed in any way by a home made caramel apple. Ah, well...I digress.

Anyway, I do love Halloween. I love the darkness, the scariness, the fun of dressing up and being a little silly for a while. I love it so much I already know what I'm doing to be for next year! :)