Hallo-Freeze!

My dad, dressed as...well you have to guess!

The boys: L is Darth Vader and R is a Death Eater (from Harry Potter).

Unless you live in a box, you'd probably know that last night was Halloween. And where I live, in the Great White North *snicker* it was FREEZING cold!! By far the coldest Halloween in a long long time! But I do have to say, at least it wasn't raining and cold, which is worse. It was probably hovering somewhere around 0C, which is 32F. Plus there was a wind chill. So, cold.

My dad has for the past few years, come up to our place to hang out and take the boys out trick or treating. They love having him come. Last year, he dressed as a clown, and got pulled over for speeding on his way over! Too funny. I'm sure the cops see all kinds around Halloween.

I have many fond memories of Halloween as a child. My dad used to like decorating and trying to scare the kids. For several years he put out a dummy in a chair. It was just some stuffed clothing with a mask on. Then the next year, he dressed as the dummy and sat in the chair. The kids that came the previous year remembered the dummy, and so approached without caution or care, only to have my dad jump up at the last second scaring the bejeezus out of them! I also seem to remember him rigging something to come down off the roof. Kids quickly learned to be scared of our house!

I've found that over the past few years, the Halloween spirit has really died down in my neighbourhood, which is really sad. Only a handful of houses were even decorated, and only about half the houses at all had even a jack o'lantern. It was hard to know which houses to approach. We were always taught if they don't decorate, they don't celebrate, so don't go banging on the door. I'm not so sure now.

Now that my kids are older, they want to trick or treat FOREVER! We were out until the bitter end last night. R didn't want to stop, but I told him it was bedtime, so we had to go home. I took them out to the adjoining street after my dad did a round with them on our street.

So now I must exercise restraint. It's so hard to resist eating all their candy! They are at school, and I am here at home with the temptation before me. I have a terrible time with chocolate, as you may know from previous posts, and once I start eating it, I crave it for days and weeks on end, until, as it seems, it leaves my system or something.

I wanted to give a shout out to another blog I read, Fighting Off Frumpy as she wrote an excellent post (well, all her posts are excellent) about Halloween beefs. I completely agree with all her points. Go read it, she's a very funny lady!