Well, all-in-all, I’d call Halloween a resounding success! Everything came together exactly as planned, costumes were on, makeup stayed put, tantrums weren’t thrown and dishes were prepared. I’d call that a “good day” in my book.

A few years ago, my sister-in-law Sara started, what quickly became tradition, serving soup on Halloween night and everyone else supplies appetizers, breads and desserts. We live in the same neighborhood so we use Sara’ s house as “base” where we hand out candy and the kids can come and go.

After a hearty meal (for some reason, soup does not register on my radar as satisfying…therefore I eat a ton of it…well that and caramel corn) we set out and began the begging for free candy.In our area wehave one of three types of Halloween…rain, cold, rainy/cold. The kids usually come home from trick-or-treating bedraggled and beaten, their costumes wet and sopping, makeup dripping down their faces, a very becoming hue of blue tinging their sweet little lips. But this year? It didn’t rain until thevery end and it was only slightly cold. The kids’ lips retained their original color! Hugely successful!

And the costumes…easy, cheap and doable.

Avery decided to be a ballerina this year and I must say she was quite a beauty! She wore this tutu for a dance recital last year while she was enrolled in ballet class *waste of money* and we decided to retire the tutu from “too pretty to play in” status to “what the hell – I have nothing else for her to wear” status. And I’d say it worked quite well!

And my little man…oh my little man. He was Batman and boy did he work the costume and the ‘tude. I made the bat ears by attaching two pieces of cut felt to a headband and fashioned his mask by cutting peeper holes intoone of my sleep masks. (Which, by the way, I don’t get. Maybe I thrash around too much or something but I CANNOT keep the danged thing on my face. I have woken up with that thing around my neck, tangled in my hair, on the floor underneathmy bed,and one time I found itwrapped around my bed lamp. Hmm.) So, anyway, the sleeping mask morphed into a super-hero mask magically. I bought a Batman symbol iron-on from Ebay and attached it to a thermal underwear shirt. Jack wore the bottoms underneath a brand spankin’ new pair of black briefs. He stepped into some black rubber boots, slipped on his (borrowed from my sister) cape and his transformation was complete! Loved it, loved him and loved him in it!

Trick-or-treating was hilarious because once he caught on to the concept, it was all systems ago. After every house he would quickly say, “Time to go to the next house!” in a sing-songy little voice and would practically skip down the sidewalk. Well,skipping as much as is possible in a pair of rubber boots that are 3 sizes too big. (Hey, it’s allwe had…don’t judge. They will fit him perfectly fine when he’s 5. In 2 years. Whatever.) He wanted candy, candy and more candy and even remembered to say ‘Thank you” in between shoving milkduds into his mouth.

Which leads me to the purpose behind the title of this post…who in the heck came up with the idea to organize a holiday in which we unleash our kids onto the neighborhood with bags outstretched and the expectation that they will receive not only candy…but good candy? And then they come home, candy is quickly checked (and this year, swiped with antiseptic wipes) and then they promptly dig in to this sugar-laden smorgasbordin an all-out gorge fest after which we parents are forced to wean them from their glucose dependancy and suffer through repeated requests for “more candy.” Jack’s been in time-0ut about 300 times today due to his inability to stop himself from sneaking various candy (and, yes, I have put his little bucket away) and then hiding himself from parental eyes while he quickly stuffs the evidence in his mouth.

So, all that being said, we had a wonderful Halloween andjoyfulprecipice to the forthcoming holiday season! But, God, I’m glad it’s over!

P.S. I’m eating their candy as I type. Damn this holiday!

Love to all, Mindy