Halloween Week

Happy Monday and happy week before Halloween! It’s hard to believe it, but in exactly a week from today, October and Halloween will be behind us and we will be beginning November, and marching squarely toward Thanksgiving, and the holiday season. Overwhelmed? Don’t be…I’ve got some tricks and tips coming in the months to help the holidays pass a wee bit easier. I’ll share ways to cook and bake during the holidays with less stress, and even share some new ideas for homemade gifts from the kitchen. But before we begin talking turkey and mistletoe, Halloween is looming. Our city calls the annual door-to-door collection of candy “Beggar’s Night,” a term I had not yet heard before moving to Central Ohio a few years ago. “Trick or Treating” was always the popular term I knew for the candy onslaught, although I recently heard “Candy Collection” too. New too is this whole idea of collecting candy *not* on Halloween night. This year we will indulge in way too much candy on Thursday, October 28, which makes me super sympathetic to the poor teachers who have to teach the children on the morning after the sugar rush. This year G is dressing up as a monkey...again. He is following in his mother’s footsteps of repeating costumes from the year prior. I was a rabbit multiple years and now G insists on wearing his monkey costume again, and since it actually still fits this year, I am happy to save the cost of a new costume. R is continuing his love of all things “Star Wars” and will be Jedi Master Obi Wan Kenobi, complete with a light saber, which will serve as a convenient glow stick too. SPH and I have yet to decide who will stay home and pass out candy, who will go trick or, er begging for candy with the boys. In years past, we lived on a busy, commercial street that never had any visitors, despite leaving our light on, with a bowl full of candy on the front steps. But the year we live squarely in the heart of suburbia, in a lotsa kids type of neighborhood…this year I just hope I bought enough candy. Speaking of candy, last year SPH and I still were able to slowly siphon off candy without R or G noticing. In fact, I would venture to guess that about ¾ of R and G’s candy ended up at SPH’s office, and they were none the wiser. We’ve taken the approach that we let the boys indulge within reason on Halloween night, and then we do a 1-2 piece a day quota until the candy magically disappears. I vividly recall how I used to group all my candy after the trick or treating on a table. “11 Reese’s Cups!” “8 Kit Kats!” “Only 2 Snickers.” My dad would watch me sort candy, and would occasionally grab a piece of candy and exclaim that it had a tear in the package and was unsafe for me to eat, only to open it and inhale it himself. But the sorting process would continue with me taking careful note of how many of each of my favorite candy bars were leftover. Since R is big into counting right now, and G is trying to learn too, I wonder if they will be keeping closer tabs on their official count of favorite candy (R: Reese’s Cup, G: Anything he can get in his hands). If they do, SPH and my siphoning activities might be discovered. But if not, we’ll siphon away…after all, there are many more treats in the coming weeks to come! SPC
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