Fright night

Halloween is over. Thank god. THANK GOD!!!

The last mini-twix has been eaten, the last mini-mars bar has been bolted down behind the children's back. Every year, you see, I stock up in miniature chocolate bars just in case we are visited by trick or treaters, and every year, I lose my nerve and decide that no, I won't put the pumpkin outside the door after all. The net result of this is of course a large bowl of treats that somebody has to finish, and I'm not so careless of my son's diets that I would let it be them. I do it out of love, you see. Eating the chocolate, that is. To save my boys from themselves.

Why do I lose my nerve? Amazingly, it's not all about unsupervised access to a bowl of chocolate on my part. Not all... It's mainly that the whole Halloween thing is just... not me, really. I mean, give me a break, I'm about as English (with all the good and bad that that implies) as it's possible to be. When I grew up, Halloween was a night of scary stories, apple bobbing at Brownies and if we were lucky, some parkin and treacle toffee that my mother had made for Bonfire night which we got our hands on early. And that was that.

The whole concept of 'Trick or treat' was a) something exotic we knew happened in America but which we would never dream of doing in the sleepy Cotswold village where I grew up, or b) something pre-teens got up to that involved flour bombs and a good telling off from a responsible adult when you got caught. Which, by the way, you invariably were.

The thought of knocking on a stranger's door and threatening to inflict a trick on them if they didn't cough up in goodies or with cash? Quite frankly it was outlandish in the extreme.

But things have definitely changed - at least, around here. On Friday night the streets of Unemployed Bankerville were crowded with parties of small children and their carers doing the 'Halloween trail', with queues of hopefuls and undignified scuffles between 5 year-olds outside the best decorated buildings. And over the weekend, Boy #1 went to three parties. Granted, two out of the three were birthday celebrations, but the third was for a Halloween party complete with themed decorations, dry ice, vast amounts of sugary treats, and an entertainer who was so convincingly dressed up as a witch that my son didn't recognise as her the same entertainer he'd seen at the previous party he'd been to earlier the same day.

(Husband took him to the first, and I took him to the second, so I also didn't realise, though I did comment to a friend that plate spinning for kids must be the 'new black', as I was sure Boy #1 had done the same thing at another party in the morning. Which, as it turned out to have been the same entertainer at both parties, was not a surprising thing to have happened...)

So anyway, here I am, teetering fatly on the chair in our miniscule office and vowing stoutly (geddit?) that next year I will not give myself the option of eating my own body weight in chocolate over the Halloween weekend. Husband can take the Boys trick or treating and I will stay home with the lights off and a single small bar of Green and Blacks for company... (Well, maybe not that small).


And it's entirely unrelated to the first part of this post, but I will leave you with the transcript of a conversation I overheard between my Husband and oldest son yesterday....

Boy #1: "Papa, what do you like best about your job?"

Husband (Did I imagine him looking desperately around for inspiration allowing him to say something other than 'the money'?): "Ummmm... The people."

Boy #1: "Because your life is going to the office, isn't it?"

Husband (probably starting to feel a little uncomfortable with the way this chat is going): "Well, no, it's part of my life, but not -"

Boy #1 (interrupting): "And my life is playing and going to school..."

Husband: "Yes, I suppose it is."

Boy #1: "And mama's life is tidying up after us."



Is it any wonder I write this blog?


Also, check this out:

http://www.amodernmother.com/2008/11/the-best-of-the.html

I've entered a post in the Best of the Mommy Bloggers Carnival hosted by A Modern Mother, one of The Thames Valley Mums. Take a look, there are some really great posts linked to on there, and it's a good way of expanding your blog reading list. You know, for in your spare time...

And if you do get round to reading my entry, please please please read the comments after it. Frankly, they are much funnier than my original post.