When I was a kid, Halloween was considered the Devil’s holiday. We weren’t allowed to dress up, go to Halloween parties, or even eat candy. I think it was partly because of my sister and her no sugar diet, but I think it might also have been because of fear. My mom is a big chicken. 😉

Halloween isn’t my favorite holiday. I don’t mind the dressing up, pretending, carving pumpkins, and drinking apple cider in your neighbor’s driveway, but I really hate all the ‘dark’ stuff. Spiders, witches, ghouls….they aren’t really my thing.  We tried to avoid the Halloween scene for a long time after having kids of our own. Again, it was partly due to the sugar overdosing, but also because all I could see was the dark side of it. I used to be very black and white in my thinking. Things were good or they were bad. There was very little grey in my world.

As the kids got older and started to see all they were missing on this particular holiday, our resolve to be Halloween free slowly started to erode until we were putting up the scary decorations, just like everyone else on the block. Brad was much more into the scary, creepy Halloween than I was, but we both participated.  My kids used to look forward to trick or treating and dressing up and trying to eat themselves into a candy coma in the past. Now, they look at it as a way to stay up late and be with friends. This is the first year we didn’t all go trick or treating together I think. I went to my sister’s for a bit and walked the streets with them, but my kids were all doing their own thing. Sigh…not that Halloween is a super big family event, but it does make me think about how quickly my kids are growing up. All too soon, I will be walking the streets without them regularly. Hopefully I will be walking to the mailbox, or a friends house and not pushing a shopping cart full of my belongings…cause I said so.

photo credit: http://www.offbeatearth.com