Another Thing I Don't Get
There are many things I do not understand but I really don't understand when exactly Halloween became such a huge freaking deal and why I wasn't consulted about it before it happened.
There is a guy on our street who has an inflatable Halloween CAR on his yard. I don't get the significance of that, either. But I shudder to think what this means for his yard at Christmas. When we were on Long Island, we noticed that Halloween is HUGE there. Every house had some serious Halloween decorations. It looked like people had hired services to decorate for Halloween, like some people here do for Christmas.
(As an aside, just so you know that I'm not being discriminatory, when I was growing up, there was a house on our street where the people put up a HUGE, I mean, ENORMOUS Star of David every year. But that's really the only time I've seen other faiths do something so over-the-top. Until now, that is. At Halloween, which is sort of the opposite of religion, right? Or maybe it's a new religion: The Church of Orange Consumerism.) (Oh, I'm sorry. Am I letting the prospect of the huge dental bills in our future make me cynical?)
I don't decorate much for Halloween, mostly because once I put something in the attic, it's easier to just go buy new than to try to find it again. So, we HAVE some Halloween decorations, I just don't know where they are. If I could find them, though, they would not be inflatable. Because (I hope I'm not hurting anyone's feelings) I think they're really huge and um, ugly. (I'm sorry if you have an inflatable Halloween car in your yard. Really. I'm sorry on very many levels.)
And as long as I'm being the Halloween equivalent of the Grinch, may I just complain about something else? ("Oh SURE you can," you say, "we stopped listening long ago, you Communist.") Who invented this new "Ghosting" thing? Do you know what that is? Someone comes and anonymously (or at least that is how it started) leaves a little bag of treats on your doorstep with a sign that proclaims that YOU'VE BEEN GHOSTED. Now you have to post a cutout of a ghost on your front window, so that no one ghosts you a second time, but you have to try to find two people in your neighborhood who haven't already been ghosted and then take them treat bags and instructions.
Try finding someone in THIS neighborhood who hasn't been ghosted. (And if you find that person, I get first dibs.)
Worse, though, it's the day before Halloween and someone just rang our doorbell to do something NEW. We got "Booed."
Actually, we got "Boo'd" which is even more offensive since now I have a sign on my front door with a punctuation error front and center.
Lovely.
Maybe I'm just feeling grumpy because for the first time ever, the girls didn't ask me to make their costumes. Ana is going as a (store-bought) Ninja and Jane is going as Hermione from the Harry Potter series. Nothing for me to make there, although if I had the right colors, I guess I could have knitted Jane a Gryffindor scarf but I think it's going to be about 80 degrees tomorrow.
Maybe it's just that I've been in a bad mood for, oh, a year or so now.
Okay, in order to ask for your forgiveness for being such a Halloween Scrooge, I present to you a Study of Two Girls in Pumpkin.
This one is entitled Classic Hippy.
He's a Classic Jack-O-Lantern but he has a ponytail. Hence the name.
This one is entitled Julia.
Knowing my kids as you do, can you guess whose is whose?
There is a guy on our street who has an inflatable Halloween CAR on his yard. I don't get the significance of that, either. But I shudder to think what this means for his yard at Christmas. When we were on Long Island, we noticed that Halloween is HUGE there. Every house had some serious Halloween decorations. It looked like people had hired services to decorate for Halloween, like some people here do for Christmas.
(As an aside, just so you know that I'm not being discriminatory, when I was growing up, there was a house on our street where the people put up a HUGE, I mean, ENORMOUS Star of David every year. But that's really the only time I've seen other faiths do something so over-the-top. Until now, that is. At Halloween, which is sort of the opposite of religion, right? Or maybe it's a new religion: The Church of Orange Consumerism.) (Oh, I'm sorry. Am I letting the prospect of the huge dental bills in our future make me cynical?)
I don't decorate much for Halloween, mostly because once I put something in the attic, it's easier to just go buy new than to try to find it again. So, we HAVE some Halloween decorations, I just don't know where they are. If I could find them, though, they would not be inflatable. Because (I hope I'm not hurting anyone's feelings) I think they're really huge and um, ugly. (I'm sorry if you have an inflatable Halloween car in your yard. Really. I'm sorry on very many levels.)
And as long as I'm being the Halloween equivalent of the Grinch, may I just complain about something else? ("Oh SURE you can," you say, "we stopped listening long ago, you Communist.") Who invented this new "Ghosting" thing? Do you know what that is? Someone comes and anonymously (or at least that is how it started) leaves a little bag of treats on your doorstep with a sign that proclaims that YOU'VE BEEN GHOSTED. Now you have to post a cutout of a ghost on your front window, so that no one ghosts you a second time, but you have to try to find two people in your neighborhood who haven't already been ghosted and then take them treat bags and instructions.
Try finding someone in THIS neighborhood who hasn't been ghosted. (And if you find that person, I get first dibs.)
Worse, though, it's the day before Halloween and someone just rang our doorbell to do something NEW. We got "Booed."
Actually, we got "Boo'd" which is even more offensive since now I have a sign on my front door with a punctuation error front and center.
Lovely.
Maybe I'm just feeling grumpy because for the first time ever, the girls didn't ask me to make their costumes. Ana is going as a (store-bought) Ninja and Jane is going as Hermione from the Harry Potter series. Nothing for me to make there, although if I had the right colors, I guess I could have knitted Jane a Gryffindor scarf but I think it's going to be about 80 degrees tomorrow.
Maybe it's just that I've been in a bad mood for, oh, a year or so now.
Okay, in order to ask for your forgiveness for being such a Halloween Scrooge, I present to you a Study of Two Girls in Pumpkin.
This one is entitled Classic Hippy.
He's a Classic Jack-O-Lantern but he has a ponytail. Hence the name.
This one is entitled Julia.
Knowing my kids as you do, can you guess whose is whose?
Comments
And Ella is dressing as Hermione, too.
And I'm on the verge of a migraine, so this may not make any sense whatsoever.
I dressed as Harry Potter when I was about 8 or 9 ish... before the fad even hit America. Mom made our costumes and I still have them in the back of my closet somewhere.
I love halloween, but mostly because I get to dress up for school.
Bah humbug.
Halloween, however, is not a religious holiday for anyone...it is a secular celebration much like Christmas has become for many people. The Pagan holiday is Samhain, and it is actually the Pagan new year, and was a harvest festival. Just an FYI.
I haven't made costumes since the year they picked Rufus (the naked mole rat from Kim Possible) and Shark Boy as costumes. I blamed my lack of desire to sew and glue and, and, and on the divorce and being a busy single mom, but honestly, those costumes undid me.
Although, I sort of like the Boo'd game you describe (there's no difference between being Boo'd and being Ghosted, right?) - why? I don't know. I've always enjoyed secret Santa type things, and this is the Halloween version, I guess. And is it any different than tagging someone with a meme? Hmmmm....I have to go think about that.
You're having a bad day, Barb. But that's okay - you're allowed. And I remember someone I knew who had 4 kids before I had any telling me that sometimes she had bad years, but she still liked her life. That's perspective, now, isn't it?
I'm sorry you're grumpy. I've been like that for a week and I put makeup on this morning just to fool myself into a better mood. Surprisingly, it worked. Sort of...
Maybe you should dress up as something grumpy (a witch??) and stay in character all day tomorrow taking your mood out on everyone that you encounter. The silliness might help you get out of your funk or it might help you express everything under the guise of "costume."
Happy Halloween, Barb.
I don't think Halloween is about anything except having fun. It's fun when you're a kid, it's even more fun as an older single person and as a parent it's fun I think to just witness the excitement. Now, there's no way I'm letting Jessie eat or hang onto all that candy. We'll pick out her favs. and put them away for later consumption and the rest will come to my office. No harm done really. Sure it's a big, blatant cash grab for all the candy making companies but there's nothing saying you can't turn off all your lights and lock the door and go out for a nice dinner instead. Maybe some nice roast beast!
I still have to go get a pumpkin or two and bake the seeds!
Happy 'Boo!' Day.
Maria
In the past DH loved to dress up as a hanged man and loll on the porch until the kids hit the doorbell then talk - there was lots of shreking. We didn't do more decorating than the spider webs.
The news said that Halloween decorating is only 2nd to Christmas decorating now.