Trick or Treat!

This will be the third year in a row that it will be raining while the kids go out and Trick or Treat. What a bummer! The rain will slow the kids down, and wreck their costumes and the candy and will actually shorten the time they stay out.

In my area, we used to get a good number of Trick or Treaters. So, we always had a lot of candy and when we ran out of it, we would use the candy that our kids brought back and discarded because they didn’t like. The weeks leading up to Trick or Treat night was exciting for our kids. They would always try to figure out what they wanted to be. With nine kids, we usually didn’t buy those costumes but made them, or pulled them together with whatever we had in the house.

When they were little and I only had a few kids…I would make their costumes…like Raggedy Andy, or a bunny or angel. Those were easy to make. Then when more of my kids started to go out…they were usually a bum! We always had old clothes around, lots of leaves to stuff under their over-sized shirts and pants, and a wine cork. The wine cork was essential because we would burn it and use the ashes to rub over their faces. It seemed like every year they would be bums. But then it changed to store bought costumes that were handed down or bought on sale, or maybe someone would use their football uniforms and go out and Trick or Treat.

When I was little, I remember always wanting a store bought costume. One year, I wanted to be a devil but my mother, who was Catholic, was against it. So instead my first store bought costume was a skeleton one. But that was the year that it snowed and my bones washed away. I looked like I just had a black outfit on. But that didn’t stop me. In those days we lived in the city. My brother and I would go out treating with a large brown grocery bag. When we had stuffed the bag to the top, we ran home, and got another bag and filled that up. Those we really the good old days!

Regardless of how Halloween is seen by adults…it is important to be part of it and those memories or similar ones like mine stay with you forever!

Happy Trick or Treating!