November 2, 2011 by Sarah
Today our shipment with all of our STUFF (except big furniture) came! I am super excited to share those details with you, but it will have to wait until I’m not too tired to go upstairs, find the camera, upload the pictures, etc, etc. Blah, I’m tired just thinking of it all.
AND, I have a couple cute pics of the kids from their first Halloween experience/celebration/fun. I don’t even know what the right word for it is….
Anyway, before this year we’ve always gone to the church’s Reformation Day Party. Because in addition to October 31st being Halloween, it is also the day Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg in 1517. His life is a fascinating history read, by the way. He was revolutionary because he firmly held that sin couldn’t be forgiven by buying indulgences; he also married, allowing precedence for Protestant clerical matrimony. Radical, I tell ya.
This year we had to actually make a decision we’ve never had to make before. And, as in all things, we did some research. Because if you’re not going to participate in Halloween you should probably know the reasons why.
To start with, there are basically 2 parts of Halloween that I don’t like: 1- the candy. Well, of course I like the candy, but I don’t like my kids having a candy spree that seems like it lasts until Valentine’s Day. This was always my primary issue with church parties too, which makes me unusual, but sorta not. ‘Cause it seems like all parents bemoan their kids getting so much candy, but then they also all give it out. Hello-o! So we decided that IF we participate, we wouldn’t do the candy thing. Instead, we would get cheapy toys from Oriental Trading and pass those out. The parents might be irritated by our sticky bugs, slappy hands and bouncy balls, but at least their kids would have some way of burning off the crazy sugar highs.
2- the other thing I don’t like about Halloween is all the scariness associated with it. I mean, really, what is fun about scaring little children? That is just mean. In the States I try not to take them into the party store anywhere near Halloween because they have nightmares after it.
Look at these cute kids– now why on earth would anyone want to scare the living lights out them?
Oh, ok, there is also something else I don’t like about Halloween. Since I was little, I always thought Halloween was like Mardi-Gras. I thought people dressed up to scare other people, play tricks on them and generally perform evil malice because they knew the next day was All Saints Day, so they were rebelling against the Catholic church. But then I got an email with a link to a company that sells tracts. Now, normally I would just delete an email like that without much thought, but as I said, we were researching Halloween at the time. And I read the tract and really like what it said about the origins of Halloween and the connection to the church. So we bought some. And passed them out along with the bouncy balls, slappy hands, and sticky bugs. Ha!
We are those people….
And what about our kids and candy? We decided they each got their age in candy on the night they went trick-or-treating. Except Helen– she got to pass out tracts. 🙂
The day after trick-or-treating they could eat as much candy as they wanted, all day long, starting after a healthy breakfast. And let me tell you, they can really pack away the candy. Our kitchen trash can was nearly full from all the wrappers. In the meantime, I made a tasty beef and barley soup. They ate a really good dinner.
After their candy-gorge day, the leftovers went communal under my authority…. so they might get a piece every now and again, but they know not to expect it daily. Or do they? Seems like they are asking for it a lot, maybe the candy monster will have to come one night for a raid. hmmmmmm…
The part of Halloween I’ve always loved best is the dressing up part. My mom made me two memorable, adorable costumes that I especially remember. One was a yellow clown costume, full-on bagginess and red poms-poms, people! The other was a blue princess dress. It was made of an aqua satin and had lace trim and full-length bell sleeves with slits in the upper arm portion. I felt like a real Arthurian princess wearing it.
With the kids, we did what we could. Thomas made his own costume and Sadie’s was based on one she saw in a pottery barn catalog for $50. Seriously! We made hers from this ugly felt blanket that was in our welcome kit. She wanted her spots to be made of hearts. How cute is that? And she made the bone necklace from the bead kit they play with all the time.
Happy Halloween!