Trunk or Turn the Other Way

 

Halloween is my favorite holiday during my favorite season.  The air is crisp, pumpkin goodies abound, and perfectly normal people get to don creative, beautiful, and (hopefully) well thought out costumes.

It's a day to be a kid again.

I trick-or-treated until I was 17.  Even after I was jumped/candy-snatched in the 7th grade (I peed my pants earlier that night from a Haunted House - so that was just icing on top of the evening.)  Nothing was going to stop me from putting on some fantastic costume that I had been planning for a year and getting my chocolate!  After high school came Chico and the fun that brought.  After Chico came the Exotic Zone Ball.

 

After the appeal of the Zone Ball died out for me, I at least had my kids to dress up and take out.  But gone were the neighborhoods of my youth where merry children would run door to door ding-donging and trick-or-treating away.  They have been replaced with "safer" mass-appealing trunk or treats.  You know what I am talking about - parking lots filled with decorated cars and people passing out candy.  A one-stop-candy-shop.

 

In addition to these trunk or treats are various other "Harvest Festivals" and Fall events.  This is where my disgruntled-ness came to be.  Remember: I LOVE - L-O-V-E - LOVE Halloween.

 

We pinterested the heck out of Halloween this year and came up with some clever costumes for my boys.  The oldest donned a morph suit and is a shadow this year.  The younger boy worked with my hubs and I to make a Lego Darth Vader costume.  They turned out Ah-mazing, if I do say so myself.

I even came up with a cute costume for Baby B that allows me to wear her.  It is still top secret.  I will share it on Friday, I promise. 

 

 Without boring you with all of the details of the horror that was our pre-Halloween weekend, here are a few key notes:

How to RUIN my favorite holiday:

• do not provide adequate parking for the tens of thousands of people that come to your event
• refuse to allow a nursing mom a parking spot so she can feed her hungry babe and then hit up the local Harvest Festival
• charge me to trunk-or-treat
• give out cheap, unpopular candy at said charged trunk-or-treat
• cram so many people in trunk-or-treat that I cannot maneuver the course

This holiday has become too much.  Everyone wants to get as much candy as possible; to get the most value out of their costumes.  It has taken the fun out of Halloween.  Let us bring back the neighborhood.  It's safe, I promise - just stick to the safe neighborhoods.  (fun fact: Halloween candy tampering is a myth.) 

I'm bringing back the old school, folks.  We are hitting up the neighborhoods on Halloween tomorrow night.  Next year, remind me to not even try to venture out outside the hours of Halloween night for Halloween-related festivities.  I'm banned.  Seriously.