In the Spirit

I believe that people firmly fall into one of two categories: Halloween people and Not Halloween people. You are either a person who loves Halloween or you don't. Personally, I haven't ever liked Halloween. I don't like the pressure of coming up with a costume, I don't like dressing up, I don't like scary and/or gross things.

But kids love Halloween, and so it is obviously something that I happily celebrate with them. (Because as grumpy as I am about it - how can I not love something that makes the kids so happy? I can't!) And this year, we had a chance to celebrate for several days in various ways.

First up on the Halloween docket was a Halloween party at Lauren's work. Lauren invited Elise and I to drop by to see her office and meet some of her co-workers while enjoying the Halloween festivities. Elise wanted to be a princess for Halloween (naturally) but had so many princess dress ups it was hard to choose which to be for the big event. So she went back and forth deciding between her current favorite dress ups: Cinderella and Snow White. For Lauren's party, she chose Snow White. She enjoyed walking around Lauren's office in her costume and meeting the other kids whose costumes were apparently not as interesting as hers ("that girl was just a ballerina! nothing else!") and of course eating lots of food with sugar in it (recurring Halloween theme!)

Next up was the school's Halloween parade. For the parade, Elise went with Cinderella. Lucas, who isn't old enough to be overly opinionated about his costume, (which was a hand-me-down from Elise when she was 18 months and was a bit snug) was a lion and he was perfectly fine with it. They enjoyed parading around the neighborhood and I think all the neighbors thought it was fun too.

The next day we headed over to Gram and Grandpa's for a Halloween dinner - in costume - at a restaurant. Elise chose Snow White for this event and Lucas stuck with his tried and true lion costume. They had lots of fun showing off their costumes and hanging out with cousin Abby, and they naturally loved the Halloween-themed cupcakes and ice cream!

Sunday was the big day - finally after all that warm-up and costume-wearing practice Halloween was here! And this year we decided to try out trick-or-treating - something we have not done with the kids before this year. Elise chose Cinderella for the big day. We went over to Elise's pal Audrey's house to trick or treat in her neighborhood, which is the hoppin' area of town for this. The entire block had tons of decorations, music, everyone dressed up, tons of kids - it was the type of thing that made me think that maybe I do actually like Halloween! We had a fantastic time trick or treating and the kids were old pros. They had so much fun - and got so much candy - the night was a huge success. And the most exciting thing of all was that at the end of the evening when I asked Elise what she wants to be for Halloween next year, she said "Super Girl"! Maybe the era of the Princess is over?!