Halloween: Infant Holiday

When we decided to come over here in the fall, I thought that I was getting out of two of the major holidays: Halloween and Thanksgiving. It would appear now that I was wrong on both counts. The kids were sick for the ward Halloween party and we didn't have costumes anyway, so I thought I was off the hook; then on Monday Maddie's friends were all talking about what they were going to dress up as and they got a reprieve from homework for the event, so I folded and went out and bought costumes for all the kids. Since neither of us had our phones, Rob bought costumes too -- it was sort of a gift-of-the-magi moment. As much as anything, I did it for continuity of memory. "I was a tiger, then I was a chicken, then I was a bat . . ."
Maddie got just what she wanted: a scary costume with makeup and a stand-up collar. She played the role quite well. Will combined Rob's ghost costume with my skeleton costume to be whatever that makes. Sebastian was the cutest purple-eared bat ever. The costumes seem to be very traditional with witches, vampires, pumpkins, and the occasional pirate or princess. The kids say 'trick or treat' or sometimes 'Susse oder Saure' (which is 'give us something sweet or we'll give you something sour!').
It was very handy that it got dark so early. We went out at about five and were home by six thirty. Trick-or-treating only started about two years ago here, and we had about a fifty percent success rate. Some people came to the door with trays of treats, and others were mystified by what you were doing there in such strange get-ups. We had a friend's mother tell us where to go and that worked better.

Grandma and Grandpa watched our door for us, but being in the back of the courtyard like we are, we only had six intrepid kids come to the door. The first three were clueless. They had no bags, they didn't say anything, they just stood there: a cowboy a skeleton and a pumpkin. So we gave them treats and wished them happy Halloween and perhaps they'll know what to do next year!