Halloween 2012

I'll start by saying that Halloween is still an odd tradition/celebration for this little Aussie. I do not particularly care to think about costumes (having said that, I did have them organized in Sept this year!). I do not particularly care for sticking my hand inside a pumpkin to clean her out (although I do like roasted pumpkin seeds as a reward). And I definitely do not care for the amount of candy (mostly because I end up eating more than my kids do).

On the other hand, we've done more or less the same nice routine for a few years and as the girls get older I am tending to like this day more and more. Plus it is Sophie's favorite celebration of the year and it's hard not to get enthusiastic when she is super excited about something.

Despite assurances every year that they would help with carving pumpkins, the girls actually come through and almost did the entire process themselves this year. Sophie scooped everything out and Kara sorted through the muck to collect the seeds. I was completely goop free and happy. They even carved the faces.

For Halloween day, the kids wear their costumes all day. The school has a parade, led by the kindergarteners, whereby all 500+ students parade past each other's grades. It takes about an hour and it is cool to watch. This is followed by halloween parties in all the grade rooms followed by an early dismissal day. (Kara's one complaint is that they don't do any school work that day!).

Then our neighbor has a potluck for about 5-6 families (the aim is to get some protein into the kids before they hit the streets). It's a great group of kids ranging in age from 5 to 11. Sophie is always the youngest and had struggled to keep up with the others in past years, but she mostly held her own this year. Our street seems to be the one many neighborhood kids come to, so we only have to hit 2 blocks in our street and we're done for the night.

And it is days like this where I notice how quickly, and how nicely, my girls are growing up. In years past my girls hang at the back of the group and were too timid to do the knocking and asking, so it was nice to see them rushing from house to house in front or by themselves. Kara would often notice Sophie wasn't as fast as the others, and either slowed down to walk with her up to the houses or would ask the house owners if she could have 2 candies so she could give one to her sister to save her from falling behind. When Kara fell over running and had to stop to pick up her spilt candy, Sophie then asked the house owner for 2 candies so Kara didn't miss out on that house. And they both handed me their first Almond Joys they were given instead of saving it for themsleves, as they know it's my favorite. (Kara has never been generous with food so this was REALLY nice to see). Then they chose which candies they were going to keep and happily gave me the rest to give away.

So maybe it's not Halloween itself that I don't care for ... maybe it's just a reminder that Thanksgiving and Christmas and the end of another year are almost upon us.