Well, we've just wrapped up another successful Halloween season at the Holbrooks' household. For the first time in many years we decided to consolidate the two annual fetes into one. Instead of having pumpkin carving (and lasagna) one weekend, and costumes, games and a bonfire the next, we sort of jammed it all into one day. Now that the older cousins are driving, dating, etc., it's harder to corral everyone once a month much less twice. When you have to throw in their various sports schedules, dates, the Clemson football schedule, school and church events, it gets crazy. We still had a lot of fun. The weekend before Halloween 25 or so of us gathered at Art's parents'. We started at 3 with our pumpkin carving. I think I counted 12 that were sacrificed for pagan decorations. The designs ranged from traditional (ours), cartoons (Thomas for Will, Ariel for Gracie), to the way complicated skulls, cats, trees and witches. Every year I expect to hear, "You know what? I'm tired of wasting all this time with these way too detailed stencils. I'm going with triangle eyes and nose and a crooked mouth." But it never happens.
First we had a costume parade so that the kids who were so inclined could show off their suits. I brought some of the supplies for our old standby games but the gutting and carving of 12 pumpkins is really all you can in an afternoon. After our lasagna dinner and dessert overload Art made a nice bonfire for those who wanted to char some marshmallows. The cows and donkeys were intrigued at all the activity near the fence. Davy the dog was concerned and barked at the fire repeatedly before running away. The one game that we did do was the Guess the Candy jar. We now know how many candy corn will fit in a wide-mouthed quart jar. SPOILER ALERT: 337. Jenna, who is 8 and a candy connoisseur, carefully considered the jar and guessed 320. She was the closest by far. Alex guessed 1 billion. Most of the others were more in line but Jenna did very well and was happy to take home the candy.
I'm very proud of the costume. Alex was set on "pirate" more than a month ago, so I'd been planning. I bought a pattern to make the whole thing but after reviewing it I came up with a few shortcuts. Other than inspiration and measurements I really didn't use the pattern. (Anybody need a pattern for child and adult pirate costumes?) We started with a base of black pants and a white shirt. Normally I don't buy Alex anything that is white. Case in point: he wore the pirate shirt twice before staining it with something that I haven't been able to get out. Luckily the pirate vest covers it up. I decided we could sacrifice this one. Maybe I'll get him a nice sweater vest for Christmas. I'm sure that's on his list!
Anyway, as I cut out the pattern pieces for the vest and looked at the instructions I decided that this could be easier. I went to Target and bought a $3 man's red t-shirt and took the pinking shears to it. I cut off the sleeves and the collar, then cut it open down the front. After Alex tried it on I cut a few inches off the length and took up the shoulder and side seams so it was small enough. The black boots were a concern. All we had were yellow rubber rain boots (aka "superhero boots" from last year). I couldn't find any plain black ones at a price I was willing to pay. Black duck tape to the rescue! Art thoughtfully covered the boots with it and they look very authentic. The gold satin-ish sash came from leftover superhero cape fabric. Since accessories do make the pirate we finished the outfit off with his red bandanna, a pirate hat from Target and a $3 set from Wal-mart that included a plastic gold earring, an eyepatch and a sword. Oh, and the all-important hook, we picked that up at a SC Children's Theatre performance of Peter Pan. I swear, selling those in the lobby at intermission was genius. They probably made back half the cost of the play with those things.
At school Friday the kids dressed as their Favorite Storybook Character. Alex chose Captain Hook from Peter Pan. He was a little bummed about not getting to wear the whole costume - I made him leave the hat, earring, sword and boots at home - but I had visions of him leaving some critical costume component in his cubby, locked up for the weekend. For our official Halloween Day, we went to the church's Trunk or Treat. We enjoyed seeing how the cars were decorated. Alex collected another pumpkin full of loot to go with what he already had from the previous week's party and school. After we got home we waited for it to get a little darker, then went to a few neighbors' houses. Our neighborhood usually doesn't get very many trick-or-treaters. I think Alex and I were the first to show up. Our wonderful new neighbors, Mike and Raquel, were celebrating their first Halloween as newlyweds and went all out, carving pumpkins, toasting pumpkin seeds and making hot chocolate. (Alex sampled the hot chocolate. I think he was most impressed that it was made in a tea kettle that whistled.) In a move that was repeated at several houses, they decided they might not have many kids come by and gave Alex a handful of candy. Silly us! Last night marked the most trick-or-treaters we have ever had - 30! We barely made it through before scraping the bottom of the candy bucket. I told Art if we had to, we could dip into Alex's buckets. You'd have thought I offered to sell his teddy bear! Luckily, it did not come to that. We shut the light off at 8 with a couple of Kit Kats left. My neighborhood award for best costume goes to Finn from around the corner. He's 3-ish, and was a shop vac. He had a black sort of hoop skirt/R2D2 container thing on with a vacuum hose sticking out. I thought it was genius. They did write "Shop Vac" on one side for those who lacked the imagination to see their vision. Very cool.
On to the Captain's Curse - Alex is off school today and tomorrow for teacher development day. I'm taking today off to stay with him, and Art is hanging out with him tomorrow. We've all been cruddy for a few days with allergy stuff. The usual hacking, coughing and runny noses. Alex had a stomach bug a week or so ago but seemed to bounce back, until today, our day off. The day of errands and haircuts. I was pretty sure it was allergy junk but Art briefly considered Halloween overindulgence. Until we took an inventory of yesterday's menu for Alex:
Breakfast - muffin, milk
(One nibble of a bite sized Twix that he 'fessed up to and surrendered)
Lunch - part of a chicken strip, some fries, chocolate milk
Snack at Mama Sue's - brownie, milk
Snack at Trunk or Treat - Capri Sun
While trick or treating - a few sips of hot chocolate, 5 candy corn
Dinner - butter beans, macaroni, cornbread
Dessert - one Reese's peanut butter cup
So much for gorging himself on candy. He is Art's child, after all. Well, I'm off to play cards with him. He's been up since 6, watching TV and coloring. Now we are going to play War, a teacher-recommended game to reinforce numbers and math. It probably will do my math skills some good as well!
No comments:
Post a Comment