I swear when I was a kid Halloween meant me grabbing a pillowcase and going door to door for a few hours. It wasn't a string of days fueled by sugar. The times, oh, how they have changed.
We opened up the celebration with the school parties. Brennan is in quite an interesting class this year. The planning of the kindergarten class halloween party was on scale with the planning of a wedding for the royal family. It was silly and insane. After the twentieth email of four or five paragraphs long, marked by many !!!!!!!! punctuation marks !!!!! to adequately express the enthusiasm of the room parents for the party planning, I turned to Chris, threw up my hands and decided some people have just way too much time on their hands. And given that our children attend a very small school, virtually guaranteeing that these other parents and children will be a part of our lives for the next 8 years (!!!!!!!), I am afraid. I am very afraid.
(As an aside, one of the emails actually listed a detailed party itinerary which included one of the room moms leading a sing a long with a list of each song to be sung WITH LYRICS included in case other parents wanted to be prepared. Yes, that itsy bitsy spider song has always been a tough one for me to figure out. I am glad I got to study before hand. )
On the flip side, I am one of the homeroom parents for Aidan's class. We sent out all of ONE Halloween party email to the parents asking them to send in $3 so we could buy crafts, treats and toilet paper for a mummy game. That's all. And that one email was about three sentences wrong. There was no "reply all" by each and every parent, no itinerary, no enthusiastic punctuation (!!!!!!!!), just straight and simple and to the point. Good god people, get a grip for the love of all that is holy.
(As another aside, the kindergarten class has also appointed (!!!!!!!) a class photographer so that each precious moment can be documented. She even went on the field trip with them today to capture it for our upcoming kindergarten photo album. These are not my people. Not at all. But I digress.)
So, Halloween at school! Brennan's class does the costume parade where they walk into each classroom to show off their costumes. The boys' school goes up to 8th grade, so it is beyond adorable to see them walking into all the older classrooms to strut their stuff. They even walk into the school office and the Principal's office.
(This is Brennan and his friend Ciara. She's a favorite of Brennan's. I think because she buys him ice cream at lunch every single day. Smart little girl, right?!)
After the parade, they were off to their fancy halloween celebration. And I will be completely honest, it was fairly spectacular. They had balloon sculptures, inflatable ghosts, a million and one games, and a treat bag about the size of a large tote bag stuffed to the brim with a whole lot of halloween related stuff.
I had to sneak out early to go do Aidan's classroom party. We had the kids decorate pumpkins while they listened to a halloween music, then they wrapped each other with toilet paper for a good forty minutes. (The toilet paper game is always a crowd pleaser.) After that, we gave them a treat bag about the size of a small ziplock with like three items in it. And a good time was still had by all.
After the school celebrations were over, we hustled home to rest up for another halloween party that night. Dancing, eating, and an all you can eat ice cream bar. (Brennan spent a little too much time at the ice cream bar.)
(I had to snag a picture of Aidan with his friend (sigh) Emily. They were inseparable over the summer and did not leave each other's side at the party. I am so NOT ready for this, in any way, shape or form.)
For the actual day of Halloween, we hosted a slew of adults and their children over for pizza, juice boxes, adult beverages and mayhem for pre-trick or treat fun. Our house was a mass of children running here, there and everywhere. That mass of children then morphed into a trick or treating gang, running from house to house in the neighborhood with a mission to get as much candy as possible. I honestly think I saw people flinch when they saw our band of ragamuffins running towards their door yelling trick or treat.
The adults followed as best we could, led by a wagon full of adult beverages, and happily carrying hot apple cider drinks spiked by our clever friend PJ who made each of us a drink to go. He is now guaranteed a spot as Halloween bartender for at least the next ten years of trick or treating bliss.
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