I don't care for Halloween....

It is now October 31 (Halloween), and I have put this off as long as possible. The truth is that I have never really cared for Halloween. As a child I guess it was ok, but ever since my mother decided that she didn't want me to have much candy and started making up lame excuses why she needed to throw it away right after Halloween, the fun has been gone! OK, I'm not scarred for life, but I do have a funny story about that. I was probably about 10 or 11 (which was near the end of my Trick-or-Treating days, because, as you all know, in my family nobody 12 or older was allowed to dress up or go out on Halloween...), and I had a large brown paper grocery bag about 9/10 full of candy by the time I got home on Halloween night - it was awesome, but heavy to lug around. The next afternoon after school I got the bag down off the shelf, intending to stuff my face, and our dog (a Black Lab named Buff, after a Collie named Buff in a book that my sister had just read when we got the dog - and, by the way, Collies are buff-colored, but Black Labs are not...) came over eagerly to see what was in the bag. Now this is where my mother's version of the story and mine seem to diverge. I saw Buff pass her head over the top of the bag once, without touching anything. My mother claimed that she put her head in the bag and drooled, so I had to throw it all away, even the wrapped stuff! (In those days we sometimes got unwrapped, homemade goodies from neighbors.) It was clearly a far-fetched excuse for getting rid of the candy she didn't want me to have in the first place, and I saw right through it, but I nevertheless had to comply. Bummer! Let me remind you that in those days I was not overweight or lazy at all - I was thin and very athletically active year-round, so I felt entitled to a little splurge and thought I was quite unjustly treated!

Years later when my own children started bringing home candy on Halloween night I began to understand my mother's point of view for the first time. That much sugar is sooooo bad in so many ways, so I resorted to stealing large amounts of the kids' candy so that they wouldn't have to eat it all and make themselves sick, or ruin their teeth. Haha, sure Mom, we really believe that one....

However, my real dislike of Halloween is probably based on the necessity of creating costumes year after year for all my children. I have never felt creative; I don't sew very well; and I hate wasting money on frivolous things. Ugh, it was always torture, especially when it sometimes felt like a competition or "keeping up with the neighbors" in costume creativity. I think all the kids were pretty young when I told them that from now on they were responsible for their own costumes.

One thing I do like, or did like, about Halloween is handing out candy to the adorable little kids who ring the doorbell. I'm not quite so keen on the teenagers who come later at night, however. On Wellesley Lane we had lots of younger children right on our street, and I enjoyed seeing them. Now that we are officially past middle age and are living in an empty-nester type neighborhood, the doorbell is quiet, although we did have one group tonight - luckily I brought some Tootsie Pops home from work. I will miss that part of Halloween, but in no way will I ever miss the costume preparation or the candy that hangs around the house for weeks afterwards!