This year, the Halloween plan is four all four of us to do…something. Involving trick-or-treating. (I know; I’ve given it a lot of thought.) Our son will be Wolverine, and our daughter will be Lydia Deetz, and I will maybe be a gumball machine (more on that later) but will probably be a cat.
Before we get to the roundup of all the things you need to get yourself into the spirit of the season, let’s do a little retrospective of Halloweens from Years Past.
There was the time I did…whatever this was. (It involved interviewing my friend Katie with part of a bush. It’s safe to say I’ve had better segments.)
There was the time that I lied to children, and then crushed their dreams.
Then there was that time I maybe possibly traumatized my own child for all eternity.
The time that my son was alllll kinds of adorable and excited, and I reinvented the wheel with my cat whiskers.
The time that Kendrick and I dressed up as Pete Doherty and his sad kitten (it’s a terrible story and I am ASHAMED of this costume in retrospect, but it was also a simpler time back then).
The time that we totally guarded the galaxy.
And finally there was two years ago, when my daughter fully internalized what happens on Halloween, which is that people give you candy, and then you get to eat it. A lot of it. Maybe even ALL OF IT?!?! (…And reacted accordingly, by going full-on Ninja with the candy-acquisition process.)
I will leave you with a transcript of an actual conversation I had with my then-three-year-old Halloween, and which I fully expect to see repeated tonight:
“The sign said to take one piece. You only took one piece, right?”
“Five.”
“You can only take one.”
“No, five.”
“One.”
“Five. In my bucket.”
(Guess who won this argument?)
Halloween: The Holiday of Picking One’s Battles.
