Halloween 2017

Last year Halloween defeated me. Our annual neighbor-sit-in-the-driveway routine made me miss my old neighbors who have left us in death and/or moves, and then as the evening was coming to a close we were robbed of our belongings left in our driveway as we went to exam our neighbor's Halloween haunted house. This year I cried, "Bah Humbug!" despite it being the wrong holiday.

The text messages began arriving a few days before Halloween asking me if we were sitting in the driveway. I replied with my above motto, but when the texts arrived again yesterday morning I got the idea people thought I was kidding. I wasn't. I was done with Halloween. It's a weird holiday especially in this day and age, I'm the last person who should be around candy, and my kids are grown and gone. Bah Humbug!

My charges, SueG's children, were disappointed. They joined our little group of trick or treaters about ten years ago, and while the rest of the gang is off to college, little Sydney is still of that age where walking the hood to ask for free candy is still a thing. If they weren't going to take part in that, they thought they would get to sit in my driveway and take part in handing out the candy and just be a part of what has become a tradition for them. My Bah Humbug did not sit well so I compromised. I told them to come over and we would play cards, or I would walk around my neighborhood with them if they wanted to trick or treat. They took me up on the walk.

For once, in Florida, the weather was fall-ish at 68 degrees, and I got to wear long pants and not sweat as we walked. The neighborhood wasn't as full this year as in the past. Perhaps everyone is feeling the Bah Humbug blues? But we had fun talking with the neighbors we knew and with the ones we didn't know. Some of our neighbors still go all out, and some involve creepy real life people that you get fooled by when walking past.

We never found the house pouring red wine for the adults, but we had a few houses that gave out whole candy bars and one who passed out coins that we later learned were foreign and worth some money. She told them as she passed them over to, "Go out and buy your own candy." This was a concern to me after we left her house. I was worried she might have some dementia, was digging into a stash of stolen money from years ago, and wondered about any repercussions. And that was before examining the coins!

Afterwards we returned to my house, examined the loot, had some dinner, watched the World Series, and then called it a night. Both of my girls put pictures of themselves dressed up for Halloween and attending whatever they were attending at college so I did get to see them. Still not the same, but their replacements kept the holiday and tradition alive and another Halloween makes into the books.