Like most things, Halloween last year was unusual. There was no Halloween parade at the elementary school, no parents helping at class parties and no trick or treating. Given the circumstances, Malia was fine with all the omissions. We had a fun celebration here at home and there was still plenty of candy to be had.
This year kind of made up for last year’s losses. With Halloween falling on a Sunday, there were three days of celebrations. The Halloween parade and the class parties at the elementary school were held on Friday. I was able to help with the class party and after a year and a half of not volunteering in the school, it felt like a little bit of normal to be back there. I’ll admit that I was a bit on edge due to the fact that Malia and I were the only ones in the room wearing masks, but like I’ve told her, we do what we feel like we need to do to keep ourselves healthy and then don’t worry about what everyone else does.
Malia’s costume this year was Hiccup from the “How to Train Your Dragon” movies. She wanted the armored flight suit from the third movie and since I was not up to the task of creating a bunch of fancy cosplay type foam armor, we perused Amazon and found a costume that she liked. It did not have the wings associated with the flight suit though, so she drew a plan for a set of wings, and I set about creating them. There was some near cussing involved with said creation at a few points, but in the end, they turned out fantastic. Malia was perfectly pleased and in my mind, that made the blood, sweat and tears worthwhile.
Yesterday was trick or treating day. Malia was super excited to be able to go this year. Kevin planned to be out with her for about an hour, but after running into a friend of Malia’s who lives down the street and deciding they wanted to trick or treat together, Malia and Kev were out roaming the streets much longer than normal. Malia had a great time though and ended up with fewer unsafe candy items than I would have expected. The weather was perfect for the occasion as well. Our bit of Indian Summer meant temperatures hovered in the mid-50’s which made for a fantastic walk around the neighborhood.
This year kind of made up for last year’s losses. With Halloween falling on a Sunday, there were three days of celebrations. The Halloween parade and the class parties at the elementary school were held on Friday. I was able to help with the class party and after a year and a half of not volunteering in the school, it felt like a little bit of normal to be back there. I’ll admit that I was a bit on edge due to the fact that Malia and I were the only ones in the room wearing masks, but like I’ve told her, we do what we feel like we need to do to keep ourselves healthy and then don’t worry about what everyone else does.
Malia’s costume this year was Hiccup from the “How to Train Your Dragon” movies. She wanted the armored flight suit from the third movie and since I was not up to the task of creating a bunch of fancy cosplay type foam armor, we perused Amazon and found a costume that she liked. It did not have the wings associated with the flight suit though, so she drew a plan for a set of wings, and I set about creating them. There was some near cussing involved with said creation at a few points, but in the end, they turned out fantastic. Malia was perfectly pleased and in my mind, that made the blood, sweat and tears worthwhile.
Yesterday was trick or treating day. Malia was super excited to be able to go this year. Kevin planned to be out with her for about an hour, but after running into a friend of Malia’s who lives down the street and deciding they wanted to trick or treat together, Malia and Kev were out roaming the streets much longer than normal. Malia had a great time though and ended up with fewer unsafe candy items than I would have expected. The weather was perfect for the occasion as well. Our bit of Indian Summer meant temperatures hovered in the mid-50’s which made for a fantastic walk around the neighborhood.
Today is the actual holiday and while there are no costumes or doorbells involved in today’s festivities, it was definitely full of fun food. We started off the day with what has become our traditional Sunday morning waffles, but we gave the waffles a bit of a sprucing up with green food coloring and chocolate. Malia was thrilled that she got to eat chocolate for breakfast. That doesn’t happen very often. We are usually pretty healthy breakfast eaters around here. We don’t consider doughnuts or cinnamon rolls to be breakfast items. Pop Tarts and other prefab breakfast foods are exceedingly uncommon at our house. Even sweetened cereals are a special treat and not the norm. So eating chocolate for breakfast was a rare treat for her. And I justified the inclusion of chocolate by reminding myself that I worked in a bit of fruit as well. It’s the Bill Cosby “Chocolate Cake for Breakfast” mentality. It had wheat, and eggs, and fruit. So it was a healthy breakfast, right? 😜
After church, our grilled cheese sandwiches got in on the Halloween action using some cookie cutters. I don’t usually do anything fancy for lunch on Halloween, but with the trick or treating done last night and the kids at home rather than at school, we took advantage of the calmer day to work in an extra fun food item. They ended up being very tasty and their giant grins told us they were happy to be so.
Ever since Nathan was just a tot and wanted spaghetti and eyeballs for dinner, our evening meal on Halloween has been a fun one. This year we partook of some witches’ brew (cream of broccoli soup, a favorite around here) served with some delightful witch finger breadsticks. Matthew and Malia helped me create the fingers which means that they got creative and branched out to other appendages. Matthew made some fantastic toes to go with the fingers and Malia created dragon claws since she is all about dragons right now. Malia also took it upon herself to create the Jell-o brain this year and made it cherry flavored since that is what Kev likes.
With 50% of my children now living away from home, I’ve started wondering if my days of creating fun foods are limited. Maybe I’ll still subject Kevin to the fun foods when it just the two of us. Maybe someday I’ll have grandkids to entertain with my festive creations. Maybe my children will assume the role of fun food chef. But who knows? For now, I still have two kids at home who are happy to eat the brains, intestines, and fingers that I create for them. And I’ll try to take advantage of the time we still have.
