"From ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties, and things that go bump in the night..."

We had Perry the Platypus.

We had his evil archnemesis, Dr Doofenschmirtz.

We had Spiderm—
No, wait, Bob the Buil---
No, wait, ME ---
Ah, finally! A pumpkin! Of course!

(We looked like that old SNL Superhero Party sketch, rolling down the street.
Or the beginning of a bad joke: “A platypus, a pumpkin, and a bat walk into a bar…”)

We had a grumpy little teething baby we left at home with Daddy, handing out Twizzlers (Can you tell who bought the candy in this house?)

We had a couple very pleasant couple of hours trick-or-treating.

The house on the corner gave out full-sized candy bars. (Incontheivable!)
My French friend C sat on her porch playing her flute – perhaps a traditional Gallic celebration?
Her neighbor Michael sported an orange prison jumpsuit stenciled with the words “Shut down Guantanamo.”
He let the children try his surprisingly lovely-sounding drum crafted from an empty propane container and then accompanied them on his clarinet.

There were blocks with no lights on at all. And there were blocks with every house ablaze, carved pumpkins and spooky scarecrows, at least one seizure-inducing light show, and lots of little old Italian ladies cooing over cute costumes.

This was the scariest house.

I saw a pea pod, several ninjas, umpteen princesses, the entire cast of the Wizard of Oz, two puppies, a turtle, a bat, a few little devils, lots of superheroes, a cowboy, and hardly any uncostumed attitudinal teenagers.

Sadly there are no MalloCups and NO Mounds bars in my kids’ Halloween haul. Plenty of “safe” (peanut-free) candy (Laffy Taffy, Smarties, gum). The usual chocolate suspects – KitKats, Hershey bars, and a couple rogue Three Musketeers. The groan-inducing raisins and pretzels. My digestive tract has lately informed me that chocolate is NOT its friend, so that’s all ok after all.

After trick or treating, there was a parade led by drummers up the street to the church on the corner. There was an organ concert, a costume contest, magic tricks, hot apple cider and treats, and if the parade is anything to go by, lots and lots of giggly, punchy, sugar-crazed kids.

I have some exhausted, sugared-up, partied-out kiddoes to put to bed, as our church bells toll in the distance and our glow-in-the-dark skeletons dangle from their porch light gibbets.

Happy Halloween!