Monday, October 28, 2013

Halloween Horrors

I am not a fan of Halloween.

I said it.  Does that make me un-American?  Anti-kid?  Against creativity and mindless chocolate eating?

Well, sue me.  I am not a fan.  Except about the mindless chocolate consumption.  I am a big fan of that.  

But the rest of it?  No thanks.

A few reasons to back up my statement:

Costumes, oh the costumes.  Need I say more?  I am cheap and unbelievably uncreative, so helping my children decide what to wear for Halloween taxes every aspect of my personality.  They tend to want store bought costumes, which I hate and refuse to spring $15-20 apiece for, so we have to come up with something ourselves.  Except I am not crafty or creative, so this is a big hurdle.  I suggest the easiest things I see on Pinterest, but the kids are not interested.  They want to wear all black and be a ninja.  Or flip their hair a lot and be a rock star.  This translates into a pack of kids walking around the neighborhood basically looking like they have no costumes at all, and begging for candy.  The neighbors love us.

The pumpkins.  Carving pumpkins is messy, disgusting, smelly and dangerous.  And did I mention messy?  The kids come up with crazy intricate ideas for their pumpkins, and I'm all like "How about triangle eyes and a circle nose?".  But no. . .they want extremely specific characters.  Luckily, my husband comes through with all the artistic skills I lack and helps the kids create jack-o-lanterns like these:


Jack Skellington, a flower, a traditional jack-o-lantern,
a Pokemon character and Sonic the Hedgehog

So while I am jamming the knife into my youngest daughter's pumpkin (who was the only one who allowed me to carve hers - she is too young to know how wretched I am at this) and yelling for all the kids to keep their distance lest I fling the knife out and hurt someone, my husband is calmly carving Sonic the Hedgehog and a Pokemon character.  Sigh. 

And creepy spiders and ghosts and ghouls decorating my house?  No thanks.  I'll stick to happy fall decor, like pumpkins and gourds and leaves and all manner of orange things.  

Last but not least, the Halloween candy.  Finally, this miserable holiday redeems itself.  Enormous bowl-fuls of chocolate on my counter?  This is a tradition I can support.

Perhaps Halloween isn't all bad, after all.   



2 comments:

ccjmommy said...

Well, I have to carve pumpkins every year by myself, because when asked what he is going to be for Halloween, by better half just answers, "hopefully, present," I am thankful for the little things! I so wish the better half would have been able to be here during the week to help carve pumpkins. But we did just have a great weekend in the Dells, so its all about give and take. Your hubby is awesome. I'm thankful all the time that he is your kiddies' daddy.

Unknown said...

Go Spencer, big points, and those pumpkins do rock. I decorated like you, if decorated at all, and my kids have absolutely no expectations of carved pumpkins as I am not sure they have ever experienced that but maybe Claire once, and I believe that was with her artistic grandpa, he rocks. Thank goodness for others with creative artistic skills eh?