Obligatory Halloween Post

It's a day before November. Wooo-hooo. I've always like November. There are four family birthdays this month. Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away. The weather is getting cold enough to bundle up for, and if there's one thing I love, it's bundling up.

When your mother is a pentecostal charismatic evangelist Christian with a capital C, you don't go trick or treating when you are a kid. Halloween is Satan's holiday, and that is not something to celebrate. You don't dress up as scary ghosts, goblins or witches, because those are products of the devil and of the world, and you are not of the world. You belong to Jesus.

Anyway. My mother and I don't share the same religion anymore (that ended for me in high school), but my apathy towards Halloween is easily explained by my childhood. I never participated in Halloween as a child, so I don't really see the big deal about it now. Yep. I'm a big old fuddy-duddy.

Stick-in-the-mud Cheryl. That's me. I don't decorate or dress up for the holiday. In my head, I mock adults who dress in silly costumes for work. But, like my feelings for a lot of other holidays, I don't publicize my true thoughts (the blog doesn't count). I just hang back and find something else to do.

I know. I'm a mom now, and I would be depriving my kids of the chance to be like all the other kids if I don't get into the swing of things. Okay. I get that. Ben isn't even two yet, so I figure I still get a year off.

Next year. I promise. Next year, we'll dress up Ben and parade him around the neighborhood, begging for candy that we probably won't let him eat much of. Anna will sit in a wagon in a cute costume and be part of the fun. I'll attach dried cornstalks to the columns in front of our house. No real pumpkins, though. Those are just asking to get smashed by some hooligans or ruffians.

This year, Chris will be handing out candy at the front door, and Ben will wear his Clifford hat around the house. We have no decorations. I thought of putting tea lights in some weighted down paper bags with cutout pumpkins on them, but the forecast is for lots of wind, and I don't feel like chasing those down the street. We don't even have a porch light installed, so I don't know how the kids will know we're open for business. Ugh. Should be fun. I'll be playing Freecell online.