Halloween seemed to come in a rush this year; after three days penned inside for Hurricane Sandy (luckily, Arlington fared pretty well, like several people, our basement flooded but the power stayed on), all of sudden the storm ended and Halloween arrived, accompanied by decent weather.
We started off the holiday by marching in the parade at the girls' school, sort of amazing to see so many different mystical beings all in the same place.
Instead of candy this year, I decided to try something new - we bought fortune fish, tattoos, parachute men, and bubbles from Oriental Trading. Most kids still wanted candy, but at least I tried. Plus, the parachute men entertained my children until trick or treating began and after we finished begging for candy, they sat on the porch and blew bubbles with their friends while handing out toys to other kids.
I have almost no good pictures from trick or treating this year, as I had to bring the dog and she pulled like crazy every time I tried to look through the lens. P (aka Wonder Woman) ran like crazy from house to house, trying desperately to accumulate more candy than her siblings. F (aka Spidergirl), on the other hand, decided to collect money for Unicef, causing her to move much more slowly than the other kids, as adults had to run back into the house to find some change. And T (aka Robin) had a cold, so it was sort of miraculous he kept going. All in all, our pack kept falling apart, but fortunately friends and neighbors helped to assure that nobody fell too far behind.
I always have such conflicting feelings about Halloween. I'm not really a costume person so all the pre-planning drives me a little crazy, especially since once my kids see a costume catalog that's all the talk about for days, I so envy and admire parents that continue to encourage homemade attire (how do you do it? how??). But once we're out and about, I'm always amazed at how the whole neighborhood comes together - watching random older people don witch hats to hand out candy, lawns that come alive with smoke machines, ghosts, and goblins, and just the general feeling of happiness and goodwill, not a bad way to spend a night.
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday! Happy November everyone!
RANDOM LINKS:
*Out of Place. Funny.
*Happy Birthday, Pablo Picasso!!
*Pretty impressive thoughts from an 8-year old girl.
*Um, well, just wow.
I'm in the same boat. I tried photographing the kids in my class in their Halloween costumes, and it was disastrous. I think the thing I hate most about it is that I have to pose the kids in order to take appropriate pictures of them.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a costume or a halloween person. The candy was exciting til each package got smaller and smaller each year.
Love the pictures, as always!