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.