It Almost Felt Like Halloween

We weren't sure what to expect this Halloween, with Covid cases surging in our area and the entire world experiencing a pandemic. We had gone back and forth on whether we would take the kids trick or treating and whether we would give out candy. We thought of a few ideas, like having Eric trick or treat at all the doors inside our house with us giving out candy (something my parents did once when I was little and Halloween was on a Sunday), or hiding candy in the yard and searching for it with flashlights (an idea I'd heard from my sister). 

In the end, we carried on some of our family traditions ... and it almost felt like a real Halloween--

Not quite like our "Golden Age" of Halloween when our kids were little, Jason and I both dressed up, and Ben was our marathon trick or treater,

or like when we used to have an annual party with ghost pie and mummy hot dogs (and our nieces looked this little!),

or like when we used to trick or treat at Grandma and Grandpa's house first,

or even like when all our kids still dressed up.

But, we did get three out of the four dressed up for school on Friday. 

Janae was John Laurens (a favorite character from the musical Hamilton). This involved a night of curlers and henna to create the right look of frizzy hair and freckles. Ben said it looked like she was wearing "deer makeup" :)

I was amazed at the results. She created the jacket herself, sewing tails, a lapel and buttons onto a second-hand jacket, and put everything else together, too.

Alaina was a perfect angel, with golden wings and a halo.

Eric was Ron Weasley--and spent the whole day correcting people who thought he was Harry Potter :)  (The red hair should have given it away, but he also had no scar and no glasses!)

Ben didn't dress up, mostly because he didn't have even a minute to think about a costume. The way high school is running this year, students have only 9 weeks to complete each set of two courses, and Ben literally spends 6+ hours a day on math homework. He was also helping to run his school's Halloween escape rooms (a drive-through experience this year) and was at the school for rehearsals and the actual event for several hours every day the past couple of weeks.

Saturday was the perfect weather for Halloween, though--beautiful and sunny with crisp leaves and a bit of a breeze. Since Alaina had been exposed to Covid at school and had been advised to monitor for symptoms until Nov. 4, she stayed home while we took Eric to a Primary drive-through trunk or treat at our church.

Eric bowled with pumpkins (alone), went through a spooky obstacle course (alone),

and then posed alone at a photo booth with all his candy.

Still, he thought it was great! 

People used tongs, tubes, plastic rakes and spoons to give out candy--which Eric received through the car window--and by the end of the drive, Eric's pumpkin basket was overflowing.

After that, we went home and had our traditional Halloween dinner of mummy hot dogs with chips and a skeleton made of veggies. I made ghost pie for the first time since 2011 (pictured above); Eric had never even had it before! 

We carved our home-grown pumpkins (which held up amazingly well all month),

ran around outside,

and even went trick or treating ... but only to our next door neighbors' house because they were expecting us. 

The kids came home, and Janae changed into her second costume: Enjolras from Les Miserables (she's definitely into musicals this year). She and Alaina gave out candy at our door with tongs. The doorbell rang seven times with two or three kids there each time. 

We watched The Wizard of Oz, and everyone ate way too much candy.

So, overall it was a pretty good evening, even though we missed some of the activities and people from past years. 

Happy Halloween (well ... almost)!