Sunday, November 04, 2007

Halloween [Bryan]


A good Halloween was had by the Warnicks. But. Is it just me or is there way more trick-or-treating than when I was a lad? This year, we went trick or treating three times. Once at our church activity (the misnamed "Trunk or Treat" activity), once at the so-called "Boo at the Zoo" (a Halloween activity at the Columbus Zoo), and then of course on Halloween night. This seems like a little much. Or am I just a Halloween Scrooge? (And what would a Halloween Scrooge say -- Boo-humbug?)

Anyway, I asked Nora what she remembered from Halloween, and she said, "Andrew tried to join all the Halloween families trick-or-treating and I didn't want to do anymore trick-or-treating." This about sums up our Halloween night. Nora got tired of trick-or-treating after about eight houses. I nearly begged her to continue, but she wanted to go home and eat her candy. Andrew, meanwhile, was really into trick-or-treating. Whenever he would see another family out trick-or-treating, he would try to sneak into their group. We would then have to go chase him down.

Oh, and I feel really guilty. This Halloween, I am ashamed to say, we ran out of candy. In Ohio, it is a tradition to trick-or-treat only during the official hours (6-8 PM) . And you have to either sit outside your house and pass out candy or at least leave your lights on and your door open so kids know that you are open for business. When we first ran out of candy, I dipped into our own children's candy so that we could feed the begging masses. With only 15 minutes to go until 8:00 I decided to turn out all our lights, blow out our jack-o-lanterns, and basically put up a "go away" sign. Five minutes later, though, the door bell rang, and out on our dark porch stood three adorable children. Bryan's dilemma: Does he further pillage his own children's candy, or does he tell the kids to go away? Bryan's solution: He slowly opens the door and meekly tells the children that he is out of candy. You should have seen their poor faces fall as they turned away. Since then, I have felt an unending stream of guilt. The lesson, dear reader, is this: find something, anything -- even multivitamins or a stick of butter -- to give to trick-or-treaters. Do not turn them away!



4 comments:

kiki comin said...

i loved their costumes..and i agree with you..i got a little halloweened out this year too!:)

Anonymous said...

Boo-humbug - HA! the same thing happened to me. i ran out of candy too. i turned off the lights but people still came. i just told them i ran out of candy and i was sorry. i havent felt any guilt or anything in fact i havent thought twice about it...maybe i am a boo humbuging halloween scrooge :)

Anonymous said...

oh and the kids are way cute, those are great costumes.

chappo said...

I agree about the over-candyazation. Grace & Hattie went out several times. I have always thought Halloween to be strange. 364 days a year we are paranoid that our kids are going to be abducted by strangers, but on Halloween we take them to strangers houses and ask for candy. Bizarre.