Trick-or-Treat 2012

The kiddos made their own costumes this year (except for that epic cardboard and newspaper witch hat, which had some mama assistance).

The big kid is always more of a minimalist, and this year sported a small amount of face paint and kitty ears as her cat costume. My little kid's efforts always seem to be grandiose: in addition to the hat, she cut up and safety-pinned the cape that was part of the big kid's vampire costume last year, and applied an extreme amount of face paint--and HAND paint!!!--

--to embody a witch:

The little kid also had a fine time with her face paint (best Christmas present EVER!) making me into a bad kitty--

--and her dad into a scary clown:

I don't know if he was INTENDED to be scary, but nevertheless...

In the course of our trick-or-treating we also encountered a Dalek, a member of Pussy Riot--

--the gas mask kid from Doctor Who (whom I required to perform for me no less than three times, bless his heart, and each time he did it I was so creeped out that I thought I was going to die), one gorilla who was almost too scary for the little kid to trick-or-treat from (but not the big kid!)--

--and just an entire neighborhood's worth of pirates, princesses, animals, and stars of stage and screen:

For a while in our neighborhood, we trick-or-treated just behind a real-life gang of teenaged hooligans. Dressed in regular clothing, I didn't realize that they were stealing all the candy from every candy bowl left on someone's porch (Do people in your neighborhood leave out a bowl of candy on their porch if they're not home or don't feel like going to the door? I've seen it in every state that I've lived in, so I'm guessing that you know what I'm talking about)--I just thought that every bowl just happened to be empty when my kids got to it right afterwards. 

It wasn't until one neighbor came out, furious, just after they'd run off and told us that those kids had stolen all his candy that we decided to take a right turn on the next block and stop following their trail of destruction.

On a positive note, the little kid, especially, received a huge amount of compliments for her costume. I love that strangers are willing to take notice of the clearly special effort that a kid has put in and then praise her for it. And on the other hand, I love that nobody teased the big kid for her very low-key costume. Different kids have different levels of tolerance for things, and I appreciate that she wasn't treated badly because she wasn't willing to completely costume herself.

The kids received everything from raisins and erasers to full-sized Snickers and Starburst. We gave out pencils and sour straws, which were graciously received, and when those were gone we gave out kid-fistfuls of pennies and nickels, which every single person from toddler to teenager was genuinely THRILLED about. Gotta love that cold, hard cash!

The day after our big adventure, we've had the smoothest post-Halloween behavior that we've ever had. The kiddos, who get to keep their candy and eat it at will, have eaten a ton, traded some, given ME some choice chocolate-y tidbits (they know how to sweeten their momma's temper!), and, blessed be, done their schoolwork without complaint!

And if THAT'S not a Halloween miracle, then I don't know what is!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!