It's Halloween!!!!

Greeley, CO

Over the weekend we went shopping for Halloween costumes. Primarily one Halloween costume, because one teenager is boycotting the costume thing altogether and the other says his quidditch hoodie paired with a pair of sweatpants counts as a costume. Fionn has been sure what her costume for this year would be since at least last Halloween, possibly earlier since I know she maintains a list of future Halloween costume plans. Early this month she put together a detailed list of requirements for said costume and has been carefully hoarding things like cake decorating tips and cardboard tubes, and pestering her brothers for the use of their belts and her father for the whereabouts of duct tape. Because she is determined to be a convincing Tusken Raider. You know, the Sand People from Star Wars, only in our house no one other than I calls them Sand People, because the proper name is Tusken Raider and my children are politically correct Star Wars fans.

Halloween has always been a big deal to our kids. Years ago I used to spend the last week of October slaving over a sewing machine to produce all the requested costumes. Somewhere along the way we switched to a deal whereby mom made two new costumes and everyone else was responsible for coming up with their own. Lately everyone has been responsible for their own, so Fionnula has been making her own most of her life. I have been worried about the execution of this particular costume. Worried that Fionn's expectations are beyond anything we could possibly reproduce with a trip to the thrift store, a few odds and ends, and some duct tape. But while she did make a few sacrifices in the end, her costume turned out fantastic I think. And after my first trip ever to an official Halloween costume store I am just so thankful that my daughter not only wants to be a Tusken Raider but that she is disgusted by the sexualized Snow White and 'Pirate Queen' costumes that were on prominent display there.

But Halloween isn't only about the costumes. There is also a lot of anticipation about the family celebration. For lots of reasons, we have never been big on the trick-or-treat thing, though my older kids can remember a couple attempts at it. For one thing it is typically cold and miserable in Colorado on Halloween night. So we have had to come up with our own traditions that don't leave our kids feeling deprived of the trick-or-treat experience. We have tried a few different Halloween night activities in the past. Its a good night for a pinata as there is an abundance of pinata sized candy available this time of year. You need an indoor pinata venue though if its snowing outside but conveniently we had access to school gyms for years when Kris was a principal. Little kids in Halloween costumes dancing in the living room to Thriller was once a standard, but its hard to get Ronan and Liam to still participate in that. What has stuck, and been our Halloween evening tradition now for years is the treasure hunt. Its so popular that kids at college will get on a hangout call with us so they can participate even though they won't get any of the treasure! This is not an average treasure hunt. Kris spends hours putting together the clues and they include complicated riddles, palindromes, number puzzles, scrambled letters, rebuses and brain teasers and even make use of youtube videos and music scores. This year it will be held in Grandma's house which should add an extra level of difficulty, not to mention Fionn's extremely limited vision through her Tusken Raider costume.