Halloween...Ba-Humbug

Growing up, my mom wanted nothing to do with Halloween and I couldn't wait to grow up and do Halloween really big. Turns out I inherited her distain for the holiday. It's so dark, scary, spooky (none of which I find fun) and all around the strangest thing.  We send our kids to knock on people's doors whom we hardly interact with the other 364 days of the year and ask for free candy. No real interaction, just dump some sugar in my bag.  People lose their minds and spend ridiculous amounts of money on costumes, decorations, and candy for what? It's a totally pointless holiday. See, I told you I got that Scrooge gene from my mom!

Years ago, Neil and I would go out to dinner and a movie on trick-or-treat night to avoid the whole thing. However, now I have children. Children that love to dress up.  I would bag the whole day still, but we don't do Santa, Easter bunny, tooth fairy, etc.  I feel like I should throw my kids a bone on Halloween.  Although the dark nature of the holiday greatly disturbs me, the idea that everyone is dressing up and playing pretent I guess I can get on board with.

One thing that we have enjoyed since Tristan started trick-or-treating, is going with our good friends and their kids. Since we don't share a common religion, there are not many holidays that overlap for us so this is a fun night we enjoy every year together. I'm looking forward to that this Wednesday. This year, another opportunity came our way and I jumped all over it. Finally a way I could hate this holiday a little less! There is a retirement community in the area that had trick-or-treating a couple nights before the big event. We were going to not be a total one way suck this year. I put together some thank you notes and the kids had fun decorating them.

The kids got in their cute costumes and headed in.  The first gathering room was filled with women sitting with bags of candy. The twins were still clueless to the fact they could have candy, but Tristan worked the room. After he was done collecting. He came to get a stack of cards. He then worked the packed room again but giving this time instead of taking. The room was full of kids so I couldn't see T, but I knew where he was by where the "awwwws" we're coming from.

This continued as we went door to door. It started some nice conversations and brought smiles to many! The kids were cute and polite and let's face it, when Ian waves, smiles, and says "bye" NOONE can resist smiling back.

This lady looked just like my grandma did.  It made me smile to she Tristan with her.

We left there with good candy and good feelings. After a great conversation on the way home I am feeling better about this mostly dreaded week.

Tristan:  I think my cards made people happy
Me: They sure did! You really made them smile.
Tristan: why?
Me: Because most people tonight came to take and you came to also give. That's always a good thing. I'm really proud of you
Tristan: Thanks, Mom

I won't promise that in the future I won't use my moms same tactics to keep us home (bribe us with a bag of our favorite candy to stay home and give out candy probably so our house wouldn't get egged), but for the next few years I will find little ways like this to make this holiday more palatable.

Big Green

 

Tonight we had to say good-bye to a very special member of our family.  Our big green chair-and-a-half.  I know it sounds strange that a chair could be so special to a family, but it has been with us literally since the first moment we became an us.  You see, it was in this chair that a certain nineteen-year-old boy asked a certain girl, "will you be my girlfriend?"  He actually asked me just like that, isn't that cute.  Even cuter, we took a picture that night :)

Yup, that's me with long hair and no bangs.  You can see why I made the change.

This chair started out it's life as my mom's furniture and I have fond memories of my mom sitting in this chair each night when I was a teenager.  The number one spot for a nap in my house was this chair.  The comfort was uncompairable to anything I have ever sat in and I have MANY friends that would testify to this.  It was big and roomy for one and comfy and cozy for two.  In years to come it would hold as many as it needed to at any given time. 
My mom passed on her furniture to Neil and I after we got married and I think she regreted giving up this gem the moment she did it.  It moved all around with us from our one room apartment in the back of the barn in New York, across country to Colorado, into student houseing at CU, and finally to our apartment we are in now.  When we first moved into the apartment we had exactly two peices of furniture, the big green chair and an office chair.  As we waited for our furniture that was on order for eight weeks, we took turns with the two chairs.  Whoever had the harder day at work got the big green chair.  Then we decided that since we didn't have ANY furniture this might be a good time to get a puppy and do some house training.  Enter Cooper.  Even he loved to cuddle in this fluffy chair.  I remember after we first got him and he got sick, I stayed up all night cuddled with him in the chair so I could hear him breathing.

A few years later, I would hold my new baby in this chair.  Countless nights spent holding and comforting this new baby.  Cooper was happy that Tristan didn't take up too much space, but the green chair always had room for one more.

It spent about four minutes of it's life as a "time-out" chair, but I quickly realized that was not the kind of chair this was.  Not this loving, hugging, all welcoming chair.

 

This oversized piece of heaven has been in just about every room of our lives.  In Tristan's room it was where we read bedtime stories and also where I spent the nights training Tristan to stay in his big boy bed.

When more babies came home, our chair seemed to expand it's love to fit them all.  I would not know where to begin to calculate how many bottles were fed to these boys in this chair.  I do know that the number would be obscene.

It's where Tristan taught Neannie how to play Angry Birds.

It's where my baby boys sat the morning we had them dedicated to God.

It's always where I cared for my children when they were sick. 

It was great at holding up forts

In this chair, even my three crazy boys could be calmed enough to sit near eachother. 

Even on this last night it was with us, she creaked under us all but held on tight to hold the love of our now big family.  Hard to believe we stated as just two kids who wanted to be boyfriend and girlfriend and have filled this chair with such wonderful little boys.  It was indeed a sad night to say good-bye but it was time to end her suffering from the jumping and climbing.  Her stuffing was down to nothing and the children now banged thier heads on 2x4s instead of her original fluffy pillow sides.  We cut open the back panel to make sure there were no lost remotes inside only to find her poor broken back.  You were so good to us even through your aches and pains.  You will be missed Big Green Chair!