It was a wild weekend for us. The culmination of weeks of planning and months of listening to my son talk about it; Halloween came. For us it is much less a sprint around the neighborhood in hopes of getting good candy, and more a marathon of decorating, crafting, planning and events.
It started weeks ago with my wife making a costume from scratch because obviously the boy wanted to be the most obscure thing ever in the history if children’s stories.
The costume came out wonderfully but ensured a few late nights sewing, stitching and gluing.
From there, decorations had to happen. Both the inside and outside of our home needed to be transformed.
Pumpkins had to be carved, scarecrows needed to be stuffed, candy needed to be ordered (yes ordered due to volume where we live). We too had to dress up because it wouldn’t be right if just our son did.
Then came the big weekend. First with a Friday evening party at the rec. center followed up trunk-or-treating at the world’s largest Shriner palace (these guys have the good candy).
Next came Halloween day, with crafts at the mall, trick or treating downtown and then finally the main event. Which is several blocks of door-to-door sales pitches surrounded by hundreds of children all sugared up and dodging traffic.
Not to be outdone by just shutting the lights collecting candy with the boy, we also handed out over 1,500 pieces to about 1,000 kids; 950 of whom dressed as Captain America. This may actually be my son’s favorite part of the entire day, as he slowly and painstakingly hands out one piece at a time to the ever-growing line of ghouls, goblins and transformers.
And because this alone would not have been enough the bullshit that is daylight savings time gets my son up super early today throwing off his entire routine. What this really means is that my son wants lunch at 10, dinner at 3:30 and is ready for bed at 5, which is of course a problem. If he were to actually go to bed at that time he would be bouncing shit off my head at 3am.
All of this would be fine, and for the most part is a blast. The boy loves it, my wife loves it and over the past few years I too have come around. But it’s hard to think about all that joy when your child is over-tired and being the world’s smallest asshole.
For all the Halloween fun we paid dearly today (November first, now known as Sunday-no-funday).
It was one battle after another with no hope for peace in the house. It featured screaming in the store, yelling in the stairs, hitting the dogs, hitting me, crying about nothing and throwing things to get my attention. All of which, needless to say, did not please me.
So as I look forward to the week ahead I wonder 3 things. First, how long do I have to take the decorations out of the lawn before they freeze there. Second, how many other projects do I need to try to accomplish? And third, how much time do I have before it’s Christmas and I have to do it all again X 10? The answers are:
- Not as much time as I think.
- Way too many to count.
- 53 days. (Wait only 53 days? That’s not even 8 friggin’ weeks!)
Happy Halloween, Merry Christmas and good luck with everything in between.