The Most Hallowed of Holidays

In my humble and unsolicited opinion, I believe that Halloween is possibly the greatest of all holidays. Why it is not a Federally recognized holiday is beyond me. Of all of the reasons to take a day off, staying up late to trick-or-treat is worth at least the day after (one must recover from the hours of escorting kids through the streets). True this year was on a Saturday night, but take 2005, October 31 was on a Monday night. The point is, that if we have a federally holiday that recognizes an individual that managed to sail three ships into a piece of land comprising of not just one, but two continents, at a minimum we should get the day after Halloween.

But wait, for many there are hours of preparation involved, so really it should be two days off. An example of this is the guy that built the coffin and put it in his yard. Then he waited until my two unsuspecting children walked by, then leaping out of the box and sending my children into a frenzy.

In spite of the injustice, Halloween is about one thing and one thing only!

Although the booty was acceptable, I learned a lot from this year and I am already planning for next year. I will now go into detail about the lessons learned:

1. My kids are weak. We only walked a couple of miles before Vance and Olivia began to whine. I did my best to motivate them, but regardless of how much I yelled at them, they lacked the intestinal fortitude to continue. It was only after incessant whining that I finally called upon our SAG support. Much like the French in any major conflict, my children quit as soon as the going got tough.

2. My kids are chickens. When the nice man wearing the happy skeleton mask went to the effort to crawl from the side of the house, in the dark, to give the kids candy they rewarded his efforts by running away. After scolding the kids for their rude behavior, I also explained to them the same way the Russian officers eplained to their soldiers at the Battle of Stalingrad that if they came back without candy I would give them something to be scared of. True, it has been a while since my Russian history class at the University of Montana, but I am sure it was something to that effect.

3. People are cheap. First of all Halloween is about candy. If you do not want to participate, turn off your lights and don't waste my time. I know, it is about the children.....don't waste my time. While some are very generous, many gave crap, which hardly makes up for those who aren't.

a. One lady gave us what appeared to be a dollar bill, however, upon closer inspection it was some religious stuff that stated we were all sinners and we are going to burn in hell (or something like that). I hope she burns in hell as I had to explain to my daughter it was not real. At a minimum I hope somebody threw some eggs at her house. Wow, maybe I will burn in hell. But seriously, don't give that crap to a 7 year old girl.

b. Just because they are rich doesn't mean their candy will be good. In fact they are probably rich because they don't spend money. Additionally, people with big houses have big yards. Big yards means long driveways. Moreover, if the lights are off on a couple of houses in a row, you could easily walk 1/8th to 1/4 of a mile between houses offering candy. Our neighbor hood is much better suited for trick or treating based on lot size alone. I will not make this mistake again.

c. We got an abundance of off brand candy. I like chocolate, but that stuff in the generic foil wrap would probably be rejected by kids in a randomly chosen developing nation. No matter how hard you try, you can never get all of the foil off which sends anyone with dental work into a fit. I hope they burn in hell too.