Blogalicious Halloween

Honestly? This is my second attempt at blogging. I started a blog on another site a couple of years ago, and have forgotten all the things that go with it - you know, the location, user name, password....just a few small details :).

So, in this new blog, I'll start over. Sometimes I'll write about writing, sometimes about music, sometimes about life - the usual bloggish environment.

Tonight is Halloween, and that's what I'm going to blog about. For the first time in 27 years, I am alone. My husband is at work, my 14-year old son at a friend's house in a different neighborhood down the road, doing the things that packs of young teenage boys do. I reminded him to refrain from indulging in court-inducing activities (such as smashing pumpkins or t.p.ing anything) or extorting candy from young goblins and ghosties. With him off with his buds and my older three children grown and gone, the silence tonight is both exhilirating and tinged with sadness. No one has come to my door, although I did prepare by buying a bag of M&M peanuts and small Reese's cups. (I figure if no one shows, I get the goodies.) Gone now are the days of dragging out my sewing machine and making princess and zombie outfits for my gang of four.

On one Halloween gone by, I was working full time and had no time to make or buy a costume for my oldest daughter (now 20). She was about three then, and I grabbed some red and white striped stockings, a cute little frilly blue jean skirt, her brother's white turtleneck shirt, her black Mary Jane Sunday school shoes, and a scarf. With this and my bag of makeup, I turned her into a very last-minute rag doll with little round pink cheeks, a scarf in her mop of natural ringlets, with eyelashes and a triangle nose drawn on and colored in with lipstick. She was adorable, and I still have the pictures from that get-home-from-work-at-dark-come-up-with-a-costume-quick! Halloween. Her older brother, who must have been about 10, was an Undead Skateboarder that year. The things kids come up with. . . !

So, I sit here with not one single Halloween decoration put out, not one wisp of fake animal fur floating in the air near the (dusty) sewing machine, not one faux cobweb or glow-in-the-dark bit of bones, not even an uncarved pumpkin, much less one grinning out at the street with that cheerful yellowish-orange glow. The only things I have that even remotely remind me that it's Halloween tonight are a jar of my favorite Indian corn at my elbow and those two bags of candy waiting for trick-or-treaters that will probably not come to this little house on a dirt cul-de-sac in a neighborhood where there are few children in residence.

It's a strange feeling to sit here and reflect on 27 years of costumes, candy, pumpkins, excitement, and day-after stomach aches, and know that those frantic, exasperating, fun, exhausting and exciting days are now a thing of the past, both for me and for my kids. I'm glad for the silence in a way, but also satisfied that my kids (and I) have memories of great Halloweens with fun costumes and the joy of a pillowcase full of chocolatey, sticky, yummy loot.

Right now, it feels like those days are really, truly, gone. But, if I know my children, I'll bet you a bag of Indian corn that one day I'm going to get phone calls from my (non-sewing) children saying, "Um, Mom, little Junior wants to be a (fill-in-the-blank) this year, can you pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaase make him/her a costume? Oh, and can you babysit on Halloween?!". . .

In the meantime, I've got a date with a bag of M&M peanuts and some Reese's Cups :).