I am usually a warm fuzzy when it comes to any reason to celebrate, birthdays, thanksgiving - bring it on! But Halloween and I, we just don't click.
My creativity has it's limits - I don't sew, and I would love to bond more often with a glue gun but it just doesn't happen.
So my kids  fend or rely on hand-me-downs for Halloween. Luckily the older one's relish in putting together their own costume, and the youngest is happy to keep it pretty simple. Ladybug wings are all she needs, in her words "I am going to have my coat on anyhow, so why bother much," and there is no way any makeup is going on her face.
So I get off easy.

But, like the rest of you parents - I still have to deal with the candy factor.

My kids have very little candy in their life. They don't ask at the grocery store for treats and freak out when their "spoiling" aunt buys them a chocolate bar. So, Halloween is a big pot of gold. Generally, they don't go crazy, but they sure like the idea. Usually, it gets forgotten about, but they would never admit that beforehand.

This year, I am going  to buy it off them. Yes, cold hard cash. Full on bribery. However, I figure the money spent to pull that junk away from their sugar fevered selves, will cost me less, literally and emotionally than having to stay home for a week with sick kids.

So, to balance my humbug-Halloween attitude, here is some sunshine.
See, I am all for the dressing up part of Halloween (as long as it doesn't involve work for me,) and Christine and I loved having some of our clients come in for the BOO sessions.

Thanks to everyone who donated for the food bank, I will look forward to dropping it off this week - every bit counts!