My earliest memory of Halloween was spent watching my Dad put on those glasses with the funny nose and eyebrows attached. He would greet all the neighborhood kids in his funny get up and I swore someday I would be just like him with those funny glasses.
Instead, my job was to fill my Halloween bucket with as much candy as possible. I would get home from an evening of trick or treating and dump my loot onto the ground in front of me and as many as I possibly could before my Mom could get her hands on it and compile it into a “community bowl”. I swore I would never be like her with that community bowl.
My last year of trick or treating was in high school when my best friend and I went door to door. I threw a sheet over my head, put my hair in pig-tails and strapped shoes to my knees. I kneeled on top of my shoes at each door step and my plan worked, everyone thought I was a small child dressed as a ghost.
I recently asked my friend if she remembers doing that and her response was, “I’ll never forget you getting down on your knees before we rang the doorbell thinking you could just get up after they closed the door and the person just stood there and waited for us to leave so you finally had to just suck it up and stand up.”
I extended my trick or treating years for as long as humanly possible. I also joined Easter Egg hunts well into my college years (there was money in those eggs!)
Now that I’m a Mom it’s frowned upon to take candy from my neighbors bowls, but I do get a kick out of dressing up in funny glasses just like I hoped I someday would. I suppose I’ve got a little bit of him in me after all.
And I’ll be damned if my Mom wasn’t the most brilliant woman ever with that Community Bowl idea. I swore I’d never have one, but now I’m singing her praises.
I suppose I’ve got a little bit of her in me too.
Happy Halloween!