Halloween Memories

Today is Halloween and we’re supposed to get thunderstorms or high winds or something in Central Ohio. Does this mean that Trick-or-Treating is cancelled tonight?  Dunno. 

I probably won’t turn on our porch light either way.  Last year was the first year in our new house and I didn’t know what the Trick-or-Treat situation was in the neighborhood.  Nevertheless, I bought a ginormous bag of candy in preparation.  And, mind you, it was the good stuff.  Kit Kats and Snickers and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups – none of that Dollar Store no-name stuff. 

But it turned out to be pretty dismal.  We got nary a single little ghoul or goblin.  Turns out there are very few kids in our neighborhood and the neighboring areas probably don’t want to bother with cul-de-sacs.  It’s either thru-streets or nothin’. 

I can understand that. I mean, the goal when you’re a kid is maximum candy collection because, frankly, you know there will be shrinkage.  You have to immediately discard the boxes of raisins and dental floss that some houses insist on handing out.  And you have to throw out any candy that has escaped its wrapper.  Probably your parents are going to filch some of your candy after you go to bed.  

But, most importantly, you know there will be candy in your bucket that you don’t like.

For me it was candy corn.  Yuck.  I couldn’t even give that stuff away. Try as I might, I couldn’t broker a trade with my younger siblings.  Even when they were barely old enough to string a complete sentence together, they were still too savvy to trade their Hershey’s bar for a couple pieces of plastic-tasting candy corn. 

I don’t know how much they focus on candy at my sister’s house nowadays, but my niece has spent the past couple years putting a lot of thought into choosing her Halloween costume.  Last year the kid went as “the body inside out” and she wore her “organs” on the outside of her clothes.  Her intestines were made out of panty hose and, well, I’m not sure what the other body parts were made out of. The pancreas and the liver looked particularly yucky.  But I had to give my niece a lot of credit for originality  – and my sister kudos for her creativity in crafting such an ambitious costume.

 

Rich Uncle Pennybags?

This year, my niece went as the little tuxedoed Monopoly Guy or Rich Uncle Pennybags from the Monopoly game. She looked adorable.  I don’t know this for sure, but I’m guessing that my sister was relieved that she only had to come up with a top hat, cane and spats for the dear child. Guts and brain matter not required.

But back when my sister and I were kids, we had to make our own costumes. Mom might have let us use a little black eyeliner, if need be, but that was about the extent of her involvement. Thus, our costumes were pretty amateurish, as I recall, and I don’t think we have a single photo of us as kids dressed up for Halloween.

Or is THIS the real Rich Uncle Pennybags?

I remember only one time getting a store-bought Halloween mask. I vaguely recall it being some sort of happy clown face, but don't quote me on that.  What I do remember for sure is that it had a flimsy piece of elastic stapled to either side of the mask, which was supposed to hold it onto my head. 

Yeah, like that worked.  My eyes were mashed into my glasses, which were mashed up against the eye holes that didn’t line up with my face so that it hurt every time I blinked. 

And it was hot.  With every breath I took, my glasses got steamed up and I had to stop and clear them so I could see. This definitely slowed down the candy collection process.

But I knew I couldn’t utter a single complaint because, well, I had begged my parents to buy me that mask and they had done so only reluctantly.

The mashed eyeballs-steamed eyeglasses problem wasn’t the worst of it, either. We’d gone to only a few houses before the elastic holding that hard plastic mask snapped and broke. Trying to fix it by sliding the now shorter piece of elastic into the space between the mask and the staple while rubbing the welt on my cheek AND holding on to my plastic Halloween bucket so that the candy didn’t spill out was a major undertaking.  Yeah, maybe that explains the “trick” part of Trick-or-Treat.

Thus, that was the first and last time I ever asked my parents to get me a store-bought Halloween mask. They were pretty savvy themselves, no?

While I don’t remember any Beggar's Nights getting cancelled due to inclement weather, I do recall many a Halloween costume ruined by having to wear our winter jackets over our costumes.  I mean, it’s not like we could fit whatever costume we’d devised from the rag bin over a bulky winter jacket. But the integrity of our costume was not of concern to our mother and her word was law, so we wore our winter jackets.  In retrospect, I can’t blame the woman.  She certainly did not want to deal with four simultaneous cases of sore throats, fevers and stuffy noses.

Ah well. Halloween is one of those “holidays” that bring back fun memories, whether you’re the kid ringing the doorbell or the person answering the door.

Hmmm. Maybe I will turn the porch light on tonight – just in case we get any brave cul-de-sac traveling ghouls or goblins. Wonder if I have any extra dental floss or little boxes of raisins lying around the house? Just kidding. At the very least, I think I can scrounge up a few Kit Kats.

So, whether you're escorting your kids as they Trick-or-Treat or you're the one answering the door, I wish you a Happy Halloween! Oh, and stay warm. (Maybe you wanna ruin your kids' costumes and put that winter jacket on over it -  just to be safe? Trust me - they'll thank you for it.  Someday.)

The Holiday Frenzy Season is Here

So Halloween is over and November has begun. And so has the Christmas music, and the holiday television and radio ads. It’s like they’re telling us, Hurry up, people, you’re running behind. GO. SHOPPING. NOW!

Yuck.

I didn’t want Halloween to end because I knew the holiday frenzy would begin immediately thereafter. I’m surprised I’m not feeling pressured to put up our Christmas tree already.

Over the years I have been known to shop for Christmas gifts throughout the year so as not to become immersed too heavily in the holiday shopping madness, but this year has been different. I haven’t purchased that first gift, card, bow or stamp, although my little mind has been churning through ideas and possibilities. Of course, until I start an actual list, the “process” cannot truly begin.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy the whole holiday season. I do. It’s just that there’s way too much hype about it.

And, heck, the poor Thanksgiving holiday gets lost in the process.

I suppose turkeys everywhere would rejoice at this news, except that somehow, some way turkeys still manages to get purchased at grocery stores everywhere by the fourth Thursday in November. Sure, we have to push aside the Christmas hams to search for the perfect turkey to feed 18 people and we are forced to listen to that incessant canned Christmas music piped through the loudspeakers while having an internal debate over serving yams or mashed potatoes or both this year. It’s distracting, I tell you.

Okay, that whole paragraph is a lie. For me, anyway. 1) I’ve never prepared a turkey for 18 people. I’ve never even prepared a turkey for two people. I’m not crazy about turkey. 2) We don’t have ham for Christmas. 3) Yams, while healthier than your standard mashed potato, are orange. And I don’t eat orange food. And, yes, that pretty much involves all orange food, including pumpkin pie. And orange Skittles. You have to throw away orange Skittles.

Uh oh. After careful review of the multitudes of orange-colored foods out there, it occurs to me that I DO eat carrots. Oops. Lied again.

The only thing about that paragraph that was true (for me, anyway), is that we DO have to listen to canned Christmas music over the loudspeakers at the grocery store before we’ve even experienced the happy Thanksgiving holiday.

Of course, what sort of music could they possibly play to celebrate Thanksgiving? I think we only have “Over the River and Through The Woods.” And wouldn’t that get old really fast? Horse-driven sleighs are, after all, a rather outdated mode of transportation these days. And nobody has written any new songs about heading to grandma’s in a Kia, for example. Even after all these years. Go figure, huh? Probably there isn’t a big market for hit Thanksgiving songs.

The other reason the Thanksgiving holiday gets the short shrift is that shoppers everywhere have to gear up for the craziness that is Black Friday. The cooks in the family have to arise at the crack of dawn on Thanksgiving Day to prepare the meal that their family is required to eat at 10AM. And the shoppers in the family avoid turkey entirely at Thanksgiving dinner because it contains L-tryptophan and they don’t want to be sleepy and miss their 9PM alarm. (And by “shoppers,” of course, I mean “women.” Men spend Thanksgiving watching football and drinking beer and eating leftover turkey sandwiches. They think the shoppers in the family are crazy to go shopping at 1 o’clock in the morning.

I blame the retail industry. Over the years, stores have competed for our holiday dollars by opening earlier and earlier the day after Thanksgiving. It started out that stores opened at 6AM on Black Friday. Then other stores started opening at 5AM. And it continued on until now you see store managers, with napkins still tucked under their chins holding plates filled with turkey and stuffing and marshmallow-y yams in one hand while they unlock the store doors with the other.

Shoppers, meanwhile, have been congregating outside the store in the cold for hours. Eventually they start pushing and shoving each other to get the prime entry positions. You’d think the store was giving away pure gold bars or something.

The closer time gets to store opening, shoppers assume the typical bull stampede stance. This includes snorting to intimidate the other shoppers and stamping and pawing the ground in anticipation so as soon as the doors open, they can rush inside to buy Tattoo Barbie or the newest Wii game before the other shoppers can get their grubby hands on the goods.

And you know what happens as soon as the doors open, don’t you? The slower-moving store managers who can’t step aside fast enough don’t make it. All that is left after the crowd has surged inside is a little smear of yam on the floor. And the napkin. That’s it.

It’s very risky to be a store manager in charge of the keys to the door on Black Friday. I hope they get combat pay.

Thus far, I have avoided joining in on the Black Friday madness. I feel sorry for the dear departed store managers for one thing. And, for another, there is no toy, sweater or iPod worth getting up for in the middle of the night. Not even if they gave it to me free.

So I say, RELAX, PEOPLE! You’ve got plenty of time. But probably you should think about putting up your tree this weekend. Unless, of course, you never took it down after last Christmas. Then you’re good. Instead, you can spend the weekend picking the orange Skittles out of your kids’ stash of Halloween candy. And maybe think about writing a Thanksgiving song with the word "Kia" in it.

Halloween 2011: The Pink Year

Vince and I went to a Halloween party Saturday night and…well…party animals that we aren’t, we were home before 11PM. I guess we finally have to admit that we just can’t hang with the big boys like we used to.

It’s not like it was a boring party or anything. As a matter of fact, it was a lot of fun. The friends who host this annual party are notorious for going all out. They decorate both the front and back yards and decorate every room inside their house, including the bathroom, with lots of lights and scary motion-activated ghosts and goblins. Plus, it’s fun just seeing the costumes they come up with. This year they were Snookie and Lady Gaga. She was Snookie and he was Lady Gaga. Too funny!

Their food is even Halloween-themed. Well, except for maybe the hot dogs. Fortunately, they didn’t hack them into jagged pieces and squeeze ketchup liberally over the “stumps” – that would’ve just been a little too realistic and unappetizing. (Uh oh. I hope I haven’t given them any ideas for next year’s party!)

Vince’s costume was a simple one born out of the fact that he had to work Saturday and didn’t have time for anything elaborate. He wore a T-shirt that read: This IS my Halloween costume.” Simple. Easy to put on. And no makeup or wigs or masks required.

I, on the other hand, didn’t have to work on Saturday and thus had way too much time on my hands to create my costume. I went as “Pinky” the Save the Ta-Ta’s Fairy. I wore pink – from my pink wig to my hot pink socks and from my fuchsia fingernail polish to my electric pink shoes. And I sprayed pink “fairy dust” (aka glitter) all over my face. Clearly, if there is one color you can easily find in October, it is pink!

I carried a Save the Ta-Ta’s bag and handed out Save the Ta-Ta’s buttons and stickers. And I carried a “Fight Like A Girl” pink ribbon cup from which I drank my pink drink that also had pink flashing “ice” cubes in it. There might have even been a little vodka in a couple of those drinks, but don’t quote me on that. I mean, it wasn’t pink or even cranberry flavored. Oh, the shame.

The “Fairy” part might not have translated as well as intended since I wore a pink cape. I looked a bit more like Little Pink Riding Hood. But, hey, I wasn’t out to win a costume contest or anything. Probably I should’ve considered pink fairy wings, but I’m not into costumes that prevent one from sitting comfortably. Plus, I’m just not that creative anymore and the thought of trying to build fairy wings that would have to somehow be affixed to my back was way more work than I wanted to do.

I drove over to the party with Muammar Gaddafi, which is interesting because he’s supposed to be dead. But he looked pretty good and wasn’t riddled with bullet holes or anything. This was a good thing since he was driving. Also in the car was the guy from the Hangover 2 – the one with the glasses who ended up with a tattoo all over his face? He may even have had a hangover, too, because both he and the monkey with him were pretty quiet on the drive over to the party. Either that, or maybe it was the monkey who had a hangover and Tattoo Guy was trying to avoid agitating the primate.

But what do I know? I was wearing a pink mask that kept me from seeing or hearing anything clearly and I barely stumbled up the steps and into the house before I yanked that stupid mask off my face and tossed it into my Ta-Ta’s bag. I ask you, who has ever been able to wear a mask for an entire party?

After that, we ate, drank and enjoyed ourselves. We watched a little college football. And Vince was able to make it to the party by the second quarter. By the time the third quarter ended, however, I’d had enough of trying to keep an unattractive neon pink wig centered on my head and Vince was tired from working all day. So I gave him the “time to go home” signal. Actually, it wasn’t even a signal. I just basically said, “Wanna go home?” And he said, “Yes.”

Yeah, we’re subtle like that.

It was probably a good thing we took our leave because I heard later that they broke out the Jagermeister. And whenever Jagermeister appears, tequila shooters can’t be too far behind. That’s just plain dangerous if one plans to have a productive Sunday instead of lying on the couch bemoaning the fact that Jose Cuervo packs a punch and leaves a mean headache to remember him by. (Not that this has ever happened to me. Well, maybe once. In my 20s. Long time ago, barely remember it.)

So, anyway, we made it home in time to see OSU pull out a win over Wisconsin. For some reason, it was way more exciting cheering for the home team sans my full pink regalia. Maybe because I’m scarlet and gray through and through – and wearing pink while watching Ohio State football just didn’t feel right.

So that was our wildly exciting Halloween 2011 experience. Of course, it could have been worse. We could have ignored the whole event and stayed home wishing we were at a Halloween party. So I think we deserve some props for making the effort. And who knows? Maybe next year I’ll get all creative and work on those fairy wings. Yeah, you know what would happen – I’d end up being Little Red Riding Hood wearing fairy wings. Sheesh.

Maybe we should just set a more realistic goal – like staying at the party at least until midnight.

Party animals.

'Tis the Season. Trick-or-Treat Season.

It’s a cold, rainy day in October and I can no longer fool myself into thinking that the warm weather is going to last.  Instead, I know we’re heading smack-dab directly into winter.  How do I know this?  Because I flipped the switch on the “butt-warmers” in my car this morning.  That’s a for-sure sign right there.  It’s as significant as when Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow and it means six more weeks of winter.  I probably won’t turn off those warmers until mid-April – whether I see my shadow in February or not. 

Plus, Vince finally turned on the furnace.  Fuzzy mittens and fleece-lined boots and winter jackets cannot be far behind. Sigh.

I’m not sure why we stick around Ohio, but we continue to do so year after year.  Maybe I like self-torture?  Probably.  Even when Vince suggests we move to a locale with a warmer climate (like Barbados, perhaps?), we don’t do it.  I start thinking about all the family and friends we’d be leaving behind and I get nostalgic and homesick before even thinking about packing that first teacup.

At least there are a few fun activities we can participate in before the snow flies.  Hopefully.  Like, we have a Halloween party to go to next weekend.  I’m looking forward to it because I think I have a cool costume – if it all comes together.  If it doesn’t, I might be wearing the same costume that Vince is wearing.  It’s a T-shirt that reads, “This IS my Halloween Costume!” 

Hey, it counts.  He won’t, after all, wear it to Sunday dinner with the in-laws.

Also, Vince’s son was over the other day and he wanted to carve a pumpkin.  So off to Kroger we went where they carefully reviewed their options and finally selected two decent sized pumpkins.  I assumed that Vince would be joining his son in carving the second one, but it turns out he expected me to carve it.  Me?

I have to confess – I have never in my life carved a pumpkin!  Seriously. I mean, sure, we had jack-o-lanterns for Halloween when we were kids, but do you think my father trusted any of us with sharp implements?  Not on a bet.  He probably figured we’d already filled our family quota of ER trips for stitches, broken bones and life-threatening fevers.  He wasn’t taking any chances.

So we all gathered around him while he did the honors and made the pumpkins come to scary life.

That was actually okay with me because the insides of a pumpkin are pretty gloppy and ooky. (And, yes, as a matter of fact, those are the technical terms.)  I didn’t really want any part of scooping out the guts of a pumpkin.

As I grew older, I realized that carved pumpkins were a target for neighborhood hoodlums and I didn’t ever want to walk around picking up bits of orange-y smooshed pieces of pumpkin goop.

Plus, I’ve seen more than my share of decaying jack-o-lanterns on neighbors’ front porches and stoops.  There IS an expiration date, people, and while a scary-faced jack-o-lantern that is caving in on itself IS even scarier than the original creation, it should probably be tossed well before Thanksgiving.  I can’t imagine it’s a fun chore to pick up something that has the consistency of a giant rotten tomato.

But mostly, I don’t want to carve my own jack-o-lantern because I don’t like scary faces.  I would’ve totally carved some happy face on the thing and it would’ve completely missed the point.  Halloween is supposed to be about scary witches and bad-luck black cats and ghosts and goblins.  Not about smiley faces.

So I wimped out in the end.  I implored Vince’s son to carve the second pumpkin, too, and he finally did.  Made the second jack-o-lantern afraid of the first one.  I thought it was clever.  And it was way better than my happy face idea.

So now we’re sort of in the Halloween spirit with two carved jack-o-lanterns gracing our doorway.  But I’ve come to realize that we’re woefully underdecorated for the holiday. Around the neighborhood, houses with strings of orange lights and blow-up ghosts on their front lawns abound.  They have Halloween-decorated wreaths on their doors.  And, if you’re lucky enough to be invited inside, they have some great Halloween decorations on their walls and tables, plus they’ve stocked up with bags full of the good candy.  In contrast, all we have is a bowl with a few expired fun-size Kit Kats. And those were probably leftover from last Halloween.

Huh.  When did it become a requirement to decorate for all these holidays?  Pretty much the only holiday I decorate for is Christmas and that alone is a big pain in the patootie.  Don’t get me wrong – I love the twinkling lights and festive atmosphere the holiday brings, but it’s still a pain to haul out all those lights and garland and wreaths and candles.

I can’t imagine decorating for Arbor Day and Valentine’s Day and Easter, too.  If I were to purchase more decorations for all these holidays, I’d just have to give up thinking that our garage could be used to house an actual car and instead we’d use it solely for holiday decoration storage.

Ah well.  Maybe those carved jack-o-lanterns will inspire me to get into the holiday spirit.  I’ll buy witchy wreaths and decorate with orange and black strings of lights.  I’ll fill the garage with more boxes of “stuff.” 

Or maybe not.  After all, unless I go out and buy some more candy, I’d have to give the Trick-or-Treaters the few expired Kit-Kats we have left.  And I really don’t want to walk around picking up bits of orange-y smooshed pieces of pumpkin goop when they smash our jack-o-lanterns in revenge for giving them crappy candy.

Plus, I don’t want to have to park in the driveway because years ago I vowed not to spend my mornings scraping snow and ice off my vehicle.  But that’s another story.