Trick or Treat

There isn't a lot I miss about the early days of my children's childhood, mainly because many of the things you do with them then grow with you or you grow tired of. But I so miss the Trick or Treating part of Halloween. Every year, I would take off early from work to enjoy seeing them in the costume we struggled over either picking out or making for the last 3 weeks. First there was the Halloween Parade at elementary school where all the classes would walk around the school to the theme song from Ghostbusters and the great Halloween song, Monster Mash . My attempt to video tape the parade only succeed in getting a half hour tape of their feet. (I wasn't very technically savvy then.) Then it was off to "the" block in my neighborhood where the street was flat and wide and the kids would run amok from house to house getting candy and treats. It was the in block to be on for Halloween night. Then, somewhere around 6 PM, we would gather at a friend's house for the pizza and wine (just for the adults, of course). The kids would be eating their candy for dinner. The fathers would take over the night shift of trick or treating taking the kids to whatever neighborhood they still needed to go for more candy. So being grown up, we did some new things this year. Tony and I went to the Nyack Halloween Parade. A bit tamer than the Greenwich Village Parade but very worth seeing. I can see this as being a solid competitor to those who don't want to venture into the madness of the Village. The annual Halloween party at Ronnie's was great fun. His costumes are always great (see last week's post) but his wife is no slacker on this either. Here she is looking mighty fine: Then there is the house on pumpkin hill. A friend of mine told me about this house in Hillsdale where the owner would carve about a hundred pumpkins and light them every night starting the weekend before Halloween. It is awesome looking! If you click on the picture you can see some closeups of the great works. So I guess I have been reduced to just the pizza and wine today. But before coming home this evening, I drove to "the block". It was packed with kids who ranged in age from middle school and up. It is still the in place to be tonight. Tonight, I'll just have pizza, wine and remember.