I hate halloween

When Charles was 4, my sister, who is the "artsy" one in the family, sent both my sons wonderful costumes to wear to "trick or treat." After weeks of anticipation, it was time to get ready. We spent 2 hours selecting the "perfect" candy to hand out before/after we went out. We had to find the most appropriate "makeup" to use along with the perfect disguises. We raced home from school/work so we could be ready on time; gobbled some sort of dinner; spent over an hour getting dressed, left "Dad" to hand out candy while we canvased the apartment complex, and we were off.

The very first door was "Chocolate Heaven." The proprietor was dressed to the "hilt" and played the hostess like a veteran, handed us way too much candy, AND THEN, the door closed...

While we were walking down the stairs from that very first place, Charles, my wonderful, pragmatic, analytical dressed up son looked up at me and said, "Do we have to do this any more?" He was over it. And that, as they say, was the sum total of all our trick or treating experiences!

When I was in my previous lifetime avocation, teaching, Halloween seemed to be a signal for "Lets back the dump truck up to our front door, deposit all the spoils of all the hours of roaming the neighborhood for the evening and let my otherwise fairly sedate off springs eat all the specialized junk food stuff they can possibly consume over and over during the next few weeks without any consideration to the end results." (This is my interpretation.) When I returned to school each year after the summer hiatus, the first thing I always did was to fill out a request form to be off on October 31, which pretty much guaranteed me the day.

This year October has a little different meaning - I'm going to New York for a few days with Charles, I'm spending 4 days in GA at a retreat, and I truly need an attitude adjustment as far as work is concerned. With all this in mind, it made sense to me to take the month of October off. And... It's been approved.

I have never done this before and I can't really say any one reason I am doing it now except I just want to. And, with all of this in mind, I am sooooo looking forward to October this year, which is totally different for me.