The End of an Era

For nearly twenty years, we have been a trick or treating household. On Halloween, Kev would roam the neighborhood with the kids, and I would stay at home to hand out candy to the children that came to our door. As an 11-year-old sixth grader, tonight was Malia’s last time participating in the annual beg for candy. She made arrangements with her friends to gather and trick or treat together sans parents, so Kevin didn’t even need to accompany her. It was yet another reminder that our family is growing up.

Malia also bucked tradition and had two different Halloween costumes. I think the last time that happened was the year I planned for Matthew to wear the monkey costume, but he definitely had different ideas and after a serious dead monkey moment, he ended up wearing the fire fighter costume instead. Anyway, Malia has been planning her “cereal box killer” costume for months, but Kevin and I had concerns about whether or not she would be allowed to parade that costume at school, so she saved that one just for trick or treating. For school, she was so pleased with the headpiece she got at the Halloween party her friend had a couple of weeks ago that she decided she wanted an old-fashioned dress to go with it. We had just barely enough time to have one delivered from Amazon, and she was mighty pleased with the end result.

 Despite growing children, Halloween dinner was still loads of fun. Witch’s Brew Stew (aka. chicken and mushroom soup) chock full of skulls and pumpkins in a pumpkin shaped bread bowl. Ghostly jicama and cucumber skulls. And brain jello, of course. It was eerily delicious. Since only Malia had a truckload of candy in her future, we had one last spooky treat as well. A bit of food coloring made caramel popcorn into zombie boogers. It was gooey, sticky, and delicious. And of course, Malia ate some anyway, once she was done roaming the night. (And yes, about half of us eat caramel popcorn with chopsticks. Keeps the phalanges from getting sticky.)

From here on out, Halloween is going to be a much more low-key holiday. I still plan to do fun food since it is so much fun, but there are no more Halloween parades, no more class parties, no more trick or treaters. And I think I’m ok with that. We’ll see how I feel when next year rolls around.