No, We Didn't Boycott Halloween

Life is just crazy, busy and I haven't had a chance to post about it. 

I love how every year Christians come out en masse to boycott Halloween.  They talk about it's origins and the evil that happens on that day.  For sure it's not all pure and holy, but seriously?  I guess I just don't get it.  Here's a holiday where you get to go around and knock on every door in your neighborhood and work on building bridges with your neighbors.  Or, you can stay inside and boycott it and live in a Jesus bubble in your home, leave your light off, and let your neighbors know that you disapprove of their choices and want nothing to do with the fun they are having. 

That's my thoughts.  Feel free to disagree, I promise, I won't be offended. 

Moving on.  My children dressed up as wild animals.  Not much of a stretch for them.  Evelyn picked out both of their costumes because she's the oldest child and is therefore inherently bossy and thinks she gets to do things like that.  Next year will be interesting when Annabelle is 2 and has a distinct opinion on life as 2-year-olds are known to have. 

 

 

Halloween lasted 3 days in our world.  Evelyn proclaimed each day that she loooves Halloween.

Day 1, Saturday: Halloween block party in the new neighborhood.  Met some neighbors including an inter-racial family with two adopted children.  Awesomeness.  I have pictures, but they are all on my iPhone.  I don't yet know the new-fangled technology that will allow me to blog these photos.  So sorry.

Day 2, Sunday: Evelyn wore her costume again, thankfully not to church.  We carved pumpkins, drank hot chocolate, and played outside in the amazing weather.  We did not have this kind of weather growing up at Halloween.  I distinctly remember wearing a snowsuit under my costume.  Be we also trick-or-treated on Thursday every year and had to tell jokes at each house.  The non-Iowans who read this are very confused right now.  The Iowans are thinking, so what, that's not weird.  But yes, it is weird.  Moving on.

Evelyn was a little wary of cutting into her beloved pumpkins.

She picked an ideal spoon for scooping and scraping.  

Clearly, this was her first attempt at cleaning out a pumpkin.

She then decided she was bored with this whole pumpkin carving business and took my camera to take some pictures of Scott and me finishing up the job.

Jack-o-lantern faces were no good in her mind.  We all needed one with the letter of our name.  My name is mommy though, so I didn't get to carve a E, I had to carve an M.  

Look!  We're the Des Moines Education Association. 

My past comes back to haunt me this Halloween.

Day 3: Actual Halloween and therefore trick-or-treating.  This was a big day for Evelyn.  She had to say both "trick-or-treat" and "thank you" to adults she didn't know.  Very challenging for her, but she conquered her fear due to the promise of candy.

Again, all the photos are on my phone.

She decided that of her basket of candy she wanted to eat the candy with the handle.  My poor deprived child doesn't know what a sucker is called.  So I googled to see if she could eat it and indeed she could.  She ate maybe 1/4 of it and decided she was done.  After seeing how candy made her behave (holy bouncing off the walls batman) it may be her only experience with candy for a while.