Damper on my Halloween

Our weekend consisted of carving pumpkins on Friday, dealing with annoying kids on Saturday night and trying to relax yesterday.


I normally like halloween.  But not in the same way other people like halloween.  Most people love dressing up and partying it up.  I like halloween to see all the other people dress up. I've never been big into dressing up for halloween, which is kind of surprising because the thought of getting to wear a costume and do fun makeup sounds appealing.  Then, add in that I married someone who never grew up with halloween, and it means we're pretty much party poopers for the event.  The thought of having to come up with a costume, and then forking over money for any part of it kind of kills it for me.

So instead of dressing up, I like decorating and preparing for the occasion.  Friday night we carved our pumpkins.  Or, rather, Ian carved them because I proved to be terrible at it without the carving kit I've always used.  Ian, who had never carved a pumpkin before, was incredibly grossed out by the whole process.  He thought it smelled like poo and hated having to clean out the insides of it.  I thought it smelled like...pumpkin.  But oh well ha. 

Ian's pumpkin:

Our pumpkins together (mine is a lion):

And look - the pumpkins even have a guard dog!

Saturday, while Ian ran his 20 miles, I went to the gym for a long cardio session.  Afterwards, we went to our fave lunch spot to get cold cuts for the week and some sandwiches.  We both took a short nap after lunch and the prepared for halloween night.

Last year, being in our current house for the first time, we had trick-or-treaters.  I was thrilled!  We decided to get takeout while I sit on the front steps and hand out candy.  And I absolutely love it.  I did the exact same thing this year, except the weather wasn't quite as cooperative.

However, this year we had a few very different trick-or-treaters.  One of the first big groups of trick-or-treaters to come by had about 8 children in it, all different ages.  It looked like 2 moms and a dad were with them.  They came running up the steps to our house (this was before I had gone outside to sit on the steps) and shouted trick-or-treat.  I bent down to grab the candy from the house and as I'm standing back up the eldest trick-or-treater, probably a 12 year old boy, demanded that each child is supposed to get 2 candies.  I was kind of taken back.  And he also was one of my pet-peeves - he wasn't even wearing a freakin costume.  If you're going trick-or-treating and want candy, you better dress up.  So I politely said that I appreciated his suggestion, but that the people giving out the free candy get to decide how much they want to give.

When one of the mothers came with the younger kids, I mentioned that the kids probably shouldn't demand how much candy they get.  She just said oh okay.

5 minutes later, I'm setting up our carved pumpkins on our front window sill and the same group of kids come running up to the window (which was open), along with the adults with them.  The mother shouts "trick-or-treat.  you got candy in there?."  UMMM REALLY?!  I shouted back that yes I do, but they have already been to our house.  She didn't respond to me, but instructed her kids to go to the next house.

Wow.  It's people like that who make me not want to hand out candy.  And what is with the parents not instructing their kids to say thank you?  I understand kids can sometimes forget or be shy or distracted, but parents who don't correct their kids are ridiculous.  And, please, tell your kids to freaking say something when I answer the door.  It's annoying when I answer the door and just see kids with their bags open.

The second annoying thing of the night - older trick-or-treaters coming at 9:45pm.  Um really - I'm not asleep by then but I'd prefer not to have people knocking at my door at 9:45pm and scaring the daylights out of me, and making Tessa bark like a maniac.

Anyways - our halloween was not as fun as last year.  Maybe next year we will have to join in halloween festivities away from our house, all to avoid the few annoying kids.

And I swear I should not be allowed to play in any fantasy sports league.  Ian is hating that I have a fantasy football team.  It's all fun and games until I become a cranky bitch and am yelling because my fantasy team is having a crappy day.  It looks like my 6-1 record will soon become a 6-2 record - and on a week I felt good about my lineup.  Well, I guess there are worse things in life.