Hallowe’en Apples

A few random thoughts about Hallowe’en (in random order):

• What a great holiday! When else can you be whomever/whatever you want to be without any judgement?
• Why don’t more people make their kids’ Hallowe’en costumes? I know these days there are costumes for sale in every store, at a price for everyone and yet to me it all seems so unsatisfying. Just looking at the cheap cloth and construction makes me cringe a little bit. For the last couple of years, we (and by we I mean my husband) have made our oldest son’s costume. Last year, Harris wanted to be a “Rainbow Sparkle Car” (aka The Pride-Mobile pictured above) I found some instructions on-line, Paul began to work with papier-mache and a few trips to the hardware store and the dollar store later and we had the beginnings of a great costume. Every house we went to commented on his costume, kids (older and younger) would point out Harris’ costume to their parents. Often houses would seem to give Harris an extra-abundance of candy because of his costume. This year in August he decided he wanted to be shark teeth for Hallowe’en. Not the entire shark mind you, just the teeth because that was the scary part. After much internet research and soul-searching, I carefully guided him into the idea of being a robot. Paul wired some LED lights to the boxes so that Harris’ helmet flashed and his costume lit up, which made it quite a bit cooler than the average robot. He also had dryer vent tubing for arms, but that was a bit awkward for a 5 year old, so on the actual night we left the arms behind. I’ve figured out the cost of this year’s costume and we probably spent more money making it than buying it (which I’m sure is another reason why parents buy their kids costumes) but the result was well worth it. Aside from having the best costume on the block (no offense to the superheroes out there, but it does get a bit repetitive when you’ve seen your fourth Batman in 10 minutes) it’s a great project to do as a family. Paul and Harris had a great time working together decorating the robot with CDs, reflectors, and gems. I am hoping that next year’s costume won’t involve cardboard boxes however as they are sometimes difficult for a little kid to manoeuvre around in. What makes a cardboard box costume great though is the fact that you can fit a snowsuit under it with no problems; a prerequisite where we live.
• I like to spell Hallowe’en with the apostrophe, mostly because most people don’t do this anymore.
• When I was growing up, my mom always had us call out “Hallowe’en Apples” instead of “Trick or Treat” because it was more polite. I thought we were the only kids to say this until I found out recently that my dentist had the exact same story, so maybe polite kids are the ones who call out “Hallowe’en Apples” and therefore should be given more candy for their manners. Maybe I should get Harris to start saying this. Have any of you used the “Hallowe’en Apples” call instead of “Trick or Treat”?
• If you think a kid is too old to trick or treat and hasn’t put any effort into a costume, don’t bully them about it. Instead offer them a 2 liter bottle of pop as their reward. They will be excited to receive such a generous treat. Then watch them walk away, knowing that you’ve given them extra weight to carry around with them. For the record, I have never done this and just heard about it at a party but it made me laugh quite a bit.
• I dressed up my twins in store-bought costumes.

Hope you had a great Hallowe’en!