Halloween, The Before Pictures

The Costumes

For the second year in a row Paul was a Power Ranger for Halloween. Last year he was Black Ranger and this year he dressed up as Special Ranger. I know nothing about Special Ranger. I do know that Paul was very excited to play the part. Actually I was surprised because Paul doesn’t play with his Power Ranger toys very often anymore. We had no problem finding the perfect costume thanks to Target and the 50 million other stores that sell Power Ranger gear.

Megan’s costume was trickier to come by. She was a cactus. It began as a joke. “Wouldn’t it be funny to be a cactus for Halloween…?” I had a few what did I get myself into moments but the actual costume was simple to assemble once I wrapped my head around the idea. I searched Flickr for inspiration and found some decent examples.

First I purchased a plain green sweatshirt and matching pants. I really wanted a hooded sweatshirt but all that I could find at my local store was the non-hooded variety. It wasn’t worth the trouble to shop around. I made the cactus spines out of pipe cleaners. My original plan was to sew the pipe cleaners. I’m not exactly crafty with the sewing needle so I said fahgettaboudit and plugged in my trusty glue gun. Yes, I did burn myself but it was a thousand times faster than sewing. I was afraid the pipe cleaners might come off but that didn’t happen. Finally, I embellished the costume with colorful pom-poms to represent cactus blooms. Megan made additional flowers out of felt.

The verdict: Megan loved her cactus costume! We had a few people who just didn’t get it and asked if she were a Christmas Tree. The folks who did get it thought her costume was clever.

Halloween Night

I was excited for Halloween but bummed because Adam was out of town and the kids and I were on our own. It didn’t help that I felt homesick for trick-or-treating in Michigan. In Romeo we always set up a beverage tent (hot chocolate, coffee and cider) as a way to meet our neighbors. I’m sure that we would have done the same thing if Adam had been home. I felt a bit like a Scrooge not even passing out candy this year.

I like my neighborhood but I don’t know many people and I don’t feel comfortable knocking on random doors. Instead of going door to door I opted to take the kids to the Kroc Center (community center) for their annual Boo Bash. Megan and Paul were happy to don their costumes, play carnival games, decorate pumpkins, jump in the bouncy house and receive prizes. It was still early when we got home so I told the kids that we could trick-or-treat at a few homes. We visited our next door neighbors (who were very generous) and picked one other street to walk down.

The one mistake of the evening was to visit a house with a spooky Halloween display. In order to get to the candy bowl the kids had to walk through a haunted passageway. Megan and Paul wanted to play along but only got halfway through before turning and running the opposite direction. Even the lure of candy wasn’t enough to overcome the fear! As we walked away Paul made it his point to repeatedly warn passing trick-or-treaters, “Turn around, don’t take the candy, don’t do it!” Thankfully the experience didn’t ruin the night or cause nightmares. Even Paul recognized the humor of the situation and that the display was make believe.