i wish i could take credit for any of these three costume masterpieces... but familyfun.com is to thank for the spaghetti and meatball AND the penguin costumes. and millie put together nancy drew all on her own (though i did convince her to put that lovely auburn rinse on her hair for the more realistic nancy drew do).
we went out with the neighbors and did the trick or treat thing. now i know ALL the arguments pro and con halloween. i have friends whose opinions i greatly respect on both sides of the debate. there are good points on both sides to celebrating halloween and to avoiding it all together. i know, i know, i know, and i don’t want to have to overthink this again...
funny store to be inserted here... once i had a friend in georgia who drove by my house and her daughter saw a carved pumpkin on the front porch and her little daughter said, “mommy, i thought mrs. lea loved Jesus? why does she have a halloween pumpkin if she loves Jesus?” yes, i love Jesus, yes, i carve pumpkins and i don’t feel that the two are mutually exclusive. but i do think about things like that a lot. i am a thinker...
then i look at the kids all dressed up and ready to go out and have fun with neighbors that we never get to see enough AND then they come home and i get to eat some miniature snicker bars... and i cannot think of a single reason why Jesus wouldn’t have gone trick or treating (what would Jesus have dressed up as... a lamb? still no one in jerusalem would have understood the irony). it could be the sugar rush to my brain that makes me feel that this is exactly what the will of God is for our lives tonight...
i think in the case of halloween, i go with the motto of “add to the beauty”. this seems to be a time when i think this should be my goal...don’t focus on the ugliness, i am fully aware that there is a lot of darkness involved in halloween. instead i choose to add to the beauty of what is lovely about the last day of october, a crisp fall night (okay so it wasn’t 90 degrees, 75 means crisp and fall like in tallahassee). the beauty of neighbors who care and children who love life and all of us running through the neighborhood dropping strings of mop wherever we go (my sewing skills were not the best on that spaghetti costume), the beauty of me handing out WHOLE candy bars at our house and even though adam said that i didn’t buy enough there were exactly 3 bars left at the end of the night and that has to be the will of the Lord because i could never do math that well. all’s well that ends with sweets, and mop strings, and leftovers, and neighbors who know our name and who know we hand out good treats.
just running around adding to the beauty, and eating candy...
this was a comment added to this post by my friend barry when it was originally posted on my other blog...
so... our kids dress up all the time. They were a little confused about why I would throw them in the car THIS TIME and then pealed out of the driveway like a mad man.
"Where are we going Daddy?"
"We are going to get candy!" I tell them excitedly.
"Where are we going to get candy?" (curious)
"People give it to you if dress up." (still excited)
"Who?" (skeptical)
"Adults!" (still excited .... growing weary)
"Why would adults give children candy?" asks Matthew (4)
"To poison them." says Andrew (7)
"sigh"
None of them were real excited (we have weird kids) until I told them that there was a dentist in town that would "buy back" their candy for a buck a pound.
That got them fired up.
Our goal was to hit every "trunk or treat" in south Atlanta - more pounds per minute than door to door.
So, off we go with two princes, two cowboys and a gloomy 9 yr old in tow ("I don't WANT to dress up," he says - he dresses up ALL the time... I think he was just being rebellious... where is that rod?).
The first trunk or treat we come to is just about over so gradma and grandpa are just loading fist fulls of candy into our children's bags. They were ready to GET OUT OF THERE. "Gloomy" didnt HAVE a bag so grandma gave him her best Publix bag.
We almost got run over a by all the SUV's pealing out of the parking lot at 7:00:01 (the event was scheduled from 6 to 7). I guess if you want to feel the love of Jesus at that church you have to get there ON TIME.
The next trunk or treat we came to looked kind of fun. We pulled up into the parking lot and looked around. Suddenly (it seemed) all backs turned as if to ignore the big huge van driving around the parking lot. I couldn't make eye contact with ANYone, so after the second lap around the parking lot, we took off. I guess if you want to feel the love of Jesus at that church, you better come on Sunday first.
Meanwhile, all the kids are in the back seat face down in their feed bags.
We drive around a little more and by this time all five kids are bouncing off the ceiling high as a kite. What to do? If someone is drunk, you give them coffee. If someone is on a sugar high you need Mexican food. Right? It seemed very logical at the time.
We find a Mexican la hascienda los taco (or something) and pile in. The other customers are dressed like pricesses, cowboys, little she devils, witches, doctors, etc. Even some parents are dressed up. How festive. Viva la ninos! (I have no idea what that means)
Some people had more convincing costumes than others. In fact, the two girls that walked in just ahead of us were dressed like lesbians. To make their costumes even more convincing, they kept making out and fondling each other.
"Why are those girls kissing each other?"
"They're sisters. Dont you ever kiss your sister? Shut up and eat your taco."
What do you say?
It was a scary night.
We went home and put together a bag to take to the dentists. I think we got about 15 pounds - after chocolate. The dentist is NOT getting the chocolate.