Best Witches

Several years ago my grandparents gave me a card that said, "The top 3 Reasons Why Halloween is the Best Holiday: You get to dress up, you get candy & no relatives come to visit." The wisdom of the aged.

I declared this a no new costume year and I basically stuck to it. Jonah was...I'm not sure what. He picked the canes up at a yard sale (like his mother, he's a big believer in having a "spare" which he loaned to Alex). He and some buddies got into the spirit of things with cans of glow in the dark silly string. If nobody answered, he'd spray a frowny face on the door. My response? It's called trick or treat for a reason.

The girls were witches because that's what we had. If I were a more highbrow mom I'd have had the girls chanting "Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble" and if someone asked who they were they'd say, "Duh, the 3 witches from MacBeth!" But I'm more of a Wizard of Oz gal so I painted their faces green and encouraged them to say "And your little dog too!"



We live on a very busy street so we headed to the "Mormon Ghetto" and ran into half our ward while trick-or-treating. Bea was delighted by the whole affair. She kept saying to herself, "This is all my candy!" She likes the unwrapping aspect more than the eating of it it would seem, as I keep thinking there are turds on the floor, but no, it's a gnawed on Milky Way or a Milkdud. The worst is the Laffy Taffy which you practically have to cut out of the carpet. To quote Ed Levine's tirade on bad candy: "I do not laffy when I get these. I sobby. I get depressedy. Because it gets all stucky to my teethy and doesn't even taste that goody." (for the full article go to http://food.yahoo.com/blog/edlevineeats/13401/the-10-most-disappointing-treats-for-trick-or-treaters )


One of the highlights for me is the great candy swap. My sibs & I would come home Halloween night and dump everything onto the living room floor, organize by kind, and then trade the stuff we hated for the stuff we loved. I'd always try to pawn off my Almond Joys and Milky Ways for Snickers and Reese's. My sister would trade anything nutty for Twix or Nestlee's Grand ($100,000 back in our day). I'd eat the good stuff first, and by December there'd be some random crappy candy forgotten in a box: vanilla tootsie rolls, a stale Bit-o-Honey, a Special Dark, butterscotch Lifesavers. My kids clearly have their favorites: Jonah loves Butterfingers, Georgia loves Kitkats, Bea loves lollypops, and Millie loves anything with sugar in it. Though I scoured thru their bags, I stole only two items year: Swedish fish and Nutrageous. Missing from their loot were some of my favorites like Baby Ruth & Bottle Caps which leads me to ask, are they not selling those anymore in "fun size," or did my kids just not snatch those out of the bowls? Abba Zabbas are all but extinct. Sigh.

Oh, a funny story about Millie. I got a call from the school nurse last week. Seeing that number gets me in a panic as all I think is LICE LICE LICE ANYTHING BUT LICE! But it was not any illness. "Camille stepped into some pudding at lunch," the nurse states all matter of fact. "I've cleaned it off as best I can but your daughter says she is 'too chocolatey' to go back to class." And though there is a box of clothes in the office that the kids can wear, my Princess refused to even try on someone's castoff pants. Nope. So I schlepped her over a fresh pair of jeans. When Georgia heard that Mills had turned down clothes from the nurse's box, she was incredulous. "But Millie, it's really awesome FREE stuff! You know my tie-dye Mickey Mouse t-shirt? I got that when I spilled paint on myself!" My little Hobo Georgie.

Since school has started Bea's watched her sisters head off to birthday parties and return with goody bags full of, well, goodies. This Saturday Bea was invited to a party and was just glowing upon her return. She insisted I take a picture of her with her hat and treats. I was thinking of not having any kind of party for her this year (the economy is also making this a no-big-parties year), but I may have to cave and at least pass out cupcakes and goody bags this month for her playgroup. I saved so much money on costumes, I'm sure there's some $ in the budget to celebrate my favorite 3 year old.