Figuring out the holidays, starting with Halloween

So it seems J and I aren’t “holiday people.” I think I’d like to be. I’m just not. I don’t think I much know how.

I get too wrapped up in the reality of the holiday to enjoy the kid-friendly versions, it seems. Like Halloween, I’m thinking of it all historically and about dead people and then these strange Protestant ideas from when I was tiny and told I’d go to hell if I dressed up... Thanksgiving, I’m thinking more of all the slain Native Americans. Christmas…well, it’s a pagan Holiday mixed with the birth of Christ whose birthday was conveniently changed to December and then we threw in a Saint but made him a mythical character…ay ay ay!

So yeah. Our poor kids.

But we had a little Halloween party yesterday at our house with ghost bananas and spider cupcakes.  If it weren’t for H’s preschool, I probably would have let the whole holiday go by without mentioning it.

But now she’s hooked.

She knows Halloween songs (I didn’t even know there were such things!). And all about costumes and trick or treating.

So I obliged her.

Because that’s what I do, I guess.

After the party we threw, J and I hadn’t discussed trick or treating. At all. So we decided to go to our favorite restaurant Le Petite instead. We haven’t really gone out to eat in AGES because we’ve been so focused on becoming debt free for the past year or so (and have succeeded! Well, until this lead thing, ha-ha!). So we decided to indulge. The kiddos wore their costumes (H a ladybug, B a monster).

When we returned home it was dark. And there were porch lights on.

And kids trick or treating.

“Oh, it’s Halloween!” H beamed. “Let’s go trick or treating!”

So we did. We went to 7 houses in our neighborhood. H thought it was amazing. Then we took them back home, let them each have one piece of candy while they changed into jammies. I laughed at B telling him he was a chocolate monster because that kid would eat nothing but chocolate if he could, and then H made noises so I’d say the same about her, but when I did, she announced, “No, Momma! I’m a chocolate ladybug!”

After they were in bed I transferred all the non-chocolate candies to a bag for J (because of H’s allergies) and left the chocolates in their buckets. And for having only hit 7 houses, they had a surprisingly large amount of candy! So now they each have 5 more pieces and then they are done. Thank goodness.

So maybe I’m not a good holiday person. Certainly not a good Halloween person – I didn’t even like that holiday as a kid strangely enough.

But I’m trying.

For my kids.

They shouldn’t dislike the holidays because they got stuck with a Grinch and a Scrooge for parents!