Halloween Memories

Yay!!! It's October, my favorite month of the year! The air gets cooler and crisp, and that smokey crunchy leave smell starts to waft through the breeze. But most importantly October means Halloween, my favorite holiday of the year!

 Halloween is awesome. I mean seriously, what other time of the year do you get to dress up anyway you want and get away with it? And let's not forget candy. How amazing is it that one night a year you get to dress up in crazy fun clothes and then get paid to do it with candy???? Yeah yeah, candy is for the kids. But in our house, we have whats called a candy tax. If I take the time to take my kids out at night I feel that it is only fair that I get a little treat too. The candy tax is determined by hold old the child is and how much work I have to do for them. If Im holding their bags or light sabers or masks from house to house, I get more candy. It's simple, fair, and my kids have never known anything different. It's pure genius (I think so at least). Everyone is happy!

One thing I noticed about myself though, is that over the past few years I've held back on dressing up. A part of that is due to having more kids to wrangle into their costumes and its just easier to throw something together that's not exactly what I would really want. Another reason is that J is not the dress up type and I feel odd being the only adult in full regalia. But this year I got to thinking about how much I love dressing in costumes, and my kids are still young enough to not be embarrassed by me. In fact, Ashe pleaded with me to be Robin this year as he has a Batman costume. And I realize that wont be the case for much longer. But the memeories of childhood Halloween last forever.

My favorite memory as a kid, was probably the reason why I love Halloween as much as I do now. When I was growing up we lived in a small town on a farm and our closest neighbors were at least a half mile away. It made for poor trick or treating. However one year my mom got this great idea to make it easier for us kids. She decided that we would use my pony as transportation. I wanted to be a Princess for halloween, and my mom and I decided to transform my pony into a unicorn. We made a horn and got nontoxic wash out pink hair dye spray which we sprayed on my ponys mane and tail. She was beautiful and fit for a princess.

Riding my "Unicorn" down the dark streets with my mom nearby, stopping to get candy was just awesome. And after Halloween, we tried washing out the hair dye on my pony but it wouldnt come out. So my poor pony had hot pink hair for about a month until it faded. The cars driving by our corral would stop often and people would stare. I still giggle when I think of that. It eventually faded with no ill effect.

And now as an adult I think about that memory and kind of wish my kids had a pony to have a memory like that. But since we don't (and won't) I think it's time to grow up a bit and do what I can to make my kids have an awesome Halloween. I want them to love it as much as I do so that when they have kids of their own they'll say to their wives "Man, my favorite holiday is halloween. I remember this one time, my mom was cool enough to dress up as Robin when I was Batman. It was so awesome!" If I can pass on that love of fun, and the knowledge that Halloween is for all, not just kids, I'll feel like I passed on an important lesson. Life can be fun/ you just have to take advantage of it. And have a candy tax!