Boo Humbug!

Halloween is my least favorite holiday. Except the candy. My sweet tooth really likes the candy. The rest of me could skip Halloween altogether and not mind a bit. Scary and spooky just don't do much for me. Horror and gore and evil are out of the question. But what really drives me crazy is costumes. Jeff came home from work the other day and said, "I was thinking about why you don't like Halloween. We need to find something to make it fun for you." Fun would be not having to deal with the child who knows exactly what he wants to dress up as and is extremely demanding about getting his costume just right. Fun would be not having to deal with the child who in indecisive, whiny, and not satisfied with the thirteen dozen costume choices we already own. Fun would be not having to deal with the fickle child who changes his mind about his costume at least once a day. Jeff then went on to explain that Halloween is a chance to explore and experiment and play with being something or someone else. I'm sure that's important for kids. My boys are always pretending to be superheroes or Jedi knights or something. Their pretend play is great and I certainly don't mind that. But I've worked hard over the years to become comfortable with who I am. I have little desire to pretend to be something else. That's what I've been trying to leave behind since I was a teenager. Jeff then implied that my inner child is buried way too deep. He's probably right. I hope I'm not spoiling all the holiday fun for my kids. I bought the decorations and put them up. I bought the candy (and I'll eat some of it too :-). We carved pumpkins and I roasted the seeds (yum!). We even attempted making popcorn balls for our Family Home Evening treat this week. But I'm tired of the tantrums and the tears over costumes. I, for one, will be glad when Halloween is over.

Adam is Paul Bunyan. Dallin is Babe the Blue Ox (Adam's idea). Ryan was a ninja for our neighbor's Halloween party, but dressed up as Harry Potter for the Halloween parade at school today, and then switched to Spiderman for trunk-or-treating and trick-or-treating. Jared is a cowboy, obviously. He has been freaking out about anything scary, to the point of running away from Halloween decorations in every store we've been to during the last six weeks. This explains why his jack-'o-lantern has a smiley face.

P.S. It turns out Dallin's costume was a real hit, even though no one recognized him as Babe the Blue Ox. About halfway through our Trunk-or-treat in the church parking lot I realized why I'd been getting comments all day about how cute he was. It wasn't just because he was a cute baby in a costume. Turns out we inadvertently dressed him as a Pleasant Grove Viking--all royal blue with horns (although they were definitely ox horns--I did my research). We haven't lived here long enough to become true PG fans yet, but we intend to. Go Vikings!