Trick-or-treating through our neighborhood

Halloween night
Originally uploaded by MCuthbert

Last night was Halloween. In years past, Misty's mom has come over and handed out candy so that we could go out trick-or-treating with our own kids. However, now that she's at the house every weekday watching Kendall, we're trying not to burden her with requests for even more of her time.

Instead, Misty took the girls trick-or-treating through half the neighborhood while I stayed home to answer the door. Then we swapped roles, and I took the girls out to hit the other "half" of the neighborhood (which was much less than half, because by this time, it was getting pretty cold outside, and their candy buckets were getting heavy). When the girls got home, they sorted their candy into piles of what they wanted to keep and what they wanted to offer up as a sacrifice to the Candy Witch (a.k.a. al.com employees). Don't worry though -- they've still got enough to last them until Christmas.

Usually, we don't get too many trick-or-treaters at our house. I've always assumed that this is because our section of the neighborhood does not have sidewalks, so most parents prefer to stick with the areas where walking around at night is safer. Plus, it's not a very big neighborhood to begin with. Anyway, not anticipating a large number of costumed kids at the door, I initially just let them grab a handful of whatever they wanted from our giant bowl of candy. Then a couple of kids took advantage of my "take what you want" suggestion, reaching in numerous times, and I realized we were going to run of treats if these tricksters kept it up, so I began handing out only a couple peices to each kid.

A little while later, while the girls were back at home changing shoes (Cinderella's glass slippers kept falling off -- just like in the story) and putting on jackets, we had a repeat customer. Misty happened to answer the door that time, and though she didn't realize he'd been to the house already, he told her (after his double dip), "I done been by this house before."

We were running low on candy as it was, and now we had kids coming back a second time? Since I'm a stingy old curmudgeon, I set out to put a stop to it. I made sure to answer the next couple doorbell rings myself, and when I saw that the faces on the porch were the same as those who'd initially instigated the Great Candy Conservation Act of 2009, I told them, "You've already been here," and withheld the prized candy bowl. One kid (who was a bit past the typical trick-or-treating age anyway) tried to play it off with, "Oh yeah... I forgot."

Yeah right. You didn't realize that you hadn't already been to the house with four jack-o-lanterns, orange lights twisted up the columns, and flashing purple bats hanging down from above. It's easy to forget.