So . . . this Halloween was different. Halloween seems like such a weird holiday anyway, one in which we encourage kids to go to strangers' houses and beg for candy.
Normally, we DON'T want children to take candy from the man in the white van, but I guess Halloween doesn't count?
Still, my husband, Dan, and I have always handed out candy to the kiddos, and we're nice strangers. Our neighborhood is a pretty popular place for trick-or-treaters, and we enjoy checking out the costumes every year.
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| The Halloweens of our past |
"Kids have way better costumes nowadays than we did," Dan says every year.
Children of the '80s will recall that our store-bought costumes consisted of what amounted to a trash bag worn over the body and a flimsy plastic mask. You may also recall the big razor-blades-in-your-candy scare. I seem to remember our hospital would even X-ray children's candy. As a child of this era and a child of a somewhat overprotective mother, I was never allowed to trick-or-treat traditionally.
This year, since we're in the middle of a pandemic and everything, Dan and I decided not to hand out candy. We decided not to do anything.
A lot of people got creative and built candy chutes and ziplines or set up a station with pre-wrapped baggies, but that seemed like way too much work.
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| Photo from The Today Show |
Fun fact: I will only do Halloween if it doesn't inconvenience me.
During the early afternoon of Halloween, I thought we might be on the receiving end of more pranks this year.
"Kids don't have anything to do this year except prank people," I said to Dan.
A kid in a big grass camouflage costume, apparently called a "Ghillie Suit," ran up to our front door, rang our bell, and waved at the camera. Then he lay in our lawn for a bit.
Dan stared at him from the front window, and the kid ran off eventually. It was kind of hilarious.
We did have a few trick-or-treaters show up around 7:00. They rang the doorbell even though we had the blinds closed, and we didn’t have the porch light on. At that point, we turned off our interior lights as well.
"Their lights are off too," we heard a little girl say.
The boy stared into our camera for a few seconds.
“There's people inside. I don't think they're opening it up though," he said, and then they left.
"I seriously don’t want to spend all night, sitting in the dark in my own house," I grumbled.
But that's what we ended up doing.
After the trick-or-treater incident, I made a sign. It was so dark by the time I posted it, I'm not sure anyone could read it.
All in all, the neighborhood seemed quiet this year. Every once in a while, we heard a few kids go by.
We did miss seeing the kids in costume this year.
I did see some cute costumes though.
My school created a video of our students dressed up for Halloween. And we got into the Halloween spirit in the music room, of course.
A few trick-or-treaters walked by our house that night, and Dan and I were able to check out their costumes from the dark in our office. Now that I put that in print, we sound a little creepy.
And if you missed seeing cute kids dressed up for Halloween in this blog post, here are my adorable nephews in their Dan-approved super hero costumes.
Now Dan and I are off to buy ourselves a bag of discounted Halloween candy.
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