Why I Like Halloween

Halloween is one of those holidays that changes over the years when the kids grow up but it's always my second favorite holiday after Christmas. Christmas doesn't really change; family still gets together, we still give presents to each other, I still cook a big feast, we still do all our traditional foods like almond roca and various Christmas cookies to give away to friends and family, we watch all our favorite movies like It's a Wonderful Life, (and Christmas Vacation), I still always do a photo Christmas card even though it's getting harder and harder to get photos of Nick & Lauren with their busy lives, we still always hang our Christmas socks and fill them for Christmas morning, etc. It has changed a little with Nick & Sachiyo going to Japan now so they won't be here and we don't do as many presents to everyone anymore. But Halloween has changed a lot because my little trick or treater are all grown up! When Nick and Lauren were little Halloween was a HUGE big deal! I'd sew their costumes every year, whatever they wanted to be. Lauren was usually an animal of some sort. It was the only time during the year that I would sew. I'd put the sewing machine out on the dinning room table and work on their costumes all month! It would make them more eager than ever to watch their costumes come to life little by little until the big day. They always wore their costumes to school on Halloween day and their classes would have big Halloween parties which I would volunteer at, of course. Then at night we would go treat-or-treating. Their friends would come over to our house and I'd prepare the pre-"trick or treating" meal (usually lasagna & salad) and some type of Halloween dessert like Spider Web Cupcakes.

I still put this photo out every Halloween, now framed.

The house was totally decorated with Halloween paraphernalia including pumpkin lights and carved Jack-o-lanterns.  We lived in a neighborhood that had a lot of trick-or-treaters and it was great for treat-or-treating because it was flat (no hills which is a big deal in Seattle) with houses close together so you could hit a lot of houses for optimum candy collection which is why Nick and Lauren's friends came to our house.  

Nowadays, I still put out some Halloween decorations but it's toned down a little.  

Actually, it's toned down a lot.

I still have the pumpkin lights but I don't usually put them out anymore. But I do have a Halloween plate that I put under lights.

I have about 6 boxes of Halloween decorations (or more…), but I'm trying to condense it down to maybe two boxes of just my favorite Halloween items.

After we moved to Idaho and Nick and Lauren were teens, they had Halloween parties which is how we ended up with even more decorations!  Lauren had a couple of Halloween parties complete with a spook house where we got some of the neighbor kids to help man it with their arms for grabbing and walking dead people.  We used a lot of black plastic gardening sheeting stuff!  Even parents would come in and take time to go through the spook house.  Lauren would have prizes for best costume, a pinata, photo booth…everyone always looked so great.

She made a graveyard with their favorite teacher's names on the headstone.  (Mr. Carpenter was her 7th grade teacher and he was a very nice teacher…those mean girls.)

Nick and his friends would be in charge of the photo booth and take photos of the party goers.

I believe this was the year of "Charlie's Angels" movie.

If you give prizes for best costume, you get some  pretty good costumes.

  

Of course, Nick and his friends had to have some fun, too, besides just doing their job as photographers.  Like axing the dog and beating on each other...

How about shadow photos when business was slow using an innocent cat as the victim.

I always got into the food part of the parties.  One year we made carmel apples as party favors.

Can you guess Harry Potter was popular in 2002.

Beside Spider Web Cupcakes, I made witches hats where you take those Nabisco Striped Shortbread cookies, turn them over and place a Hershey's kiss on top.  Then pipe some orange frosting around the bottom edge of the kiss and make a bow for the top of the hat.  So simple, yet very effective.

Also graveyard brownies- make brownies, put some green die coconut on top with an orange pumpkin candy.  Then stick a section of a Hershey chocolate bar into the brownie as the headstone and write "RIP" in white frosting or a skull and cross bones.  Again, so easy, yet so Halloween. 

For this party, just for fun, I also bought some super cute Halloween petit fours for that final food touch.  These were almost too cute to eat.

Teens really appreciate good food, you know, so during these days of Halloween I was always being a very busy foodie mom.

Which is why Halloween has changed so much since I have no small children to sew costumes for or constantly hungry teens to feed. What's a mom to do? I still send Halloween boxes to Nick and Lauren which they love and I still look for cute Halloween treats to make like the Halloween Ghosts

or my favorite Halloween Cookies.

Halloween may change but I will always find a way to celebrate and will continue to search for that next special Halloween treat.

Trick or Treat!