October is my favorite month of the year.  It finally cools down, (sort of), my favorite color orange is prominently displayed all over the place, Starbucks starts selling Pumpkin Spice Lattes, and Halloween finishes with a bang at the end of the month.  When I was a kid pumpkin carving was all about technique and planning.  Costumes were created at the last minute by pillaging through each other’s closets (I still save clothing based on the “what if someone could wear this as a costume” factor).  Also because it was New Mexico and always snowed on Halloween, you had to remember coats when deciding what to wear for trick or treating.  Case in point, in sixth grade I went as a very politically correct bag lady and wore a huge, nasty coat, and large paint splattered boots.  Nothing is worse that being a fairy princess and then having to wear a down coat on top of your costume.

When you’re a kid you take for granted that all families are like yours, (or at least fairly similar), so it was a little surprising to learn as an adult that some people really don’t like Halloween (my husband).  Between the messiness of carving pumpkins and people donning freakish costumes, (and acting freakish because they are in costumes), he can really take or leave Halloween.  Every year my good friend Marla hosts a Halloween party and every year my spouse attempts to either wear the same Friar costume he has worn for the past decade, or he prays that San Diego State has a home game and attends that instead.  I, on the other hand, have found a kindred spirit in Marla, and over the years we have done whatever we can to torture our friends with themed parties, Halloween games, and Halloween themed food (okay I admit that part is all Marla…I bring the breadsticks).  One year at the party all the women were sitting around in their wigs, eating brownies with cobwebs iced onto them. A discussion began about how Halloween is really just an excuse for women to dress up like their slutty alter egos.  For the rest of the evening we kindly referred to each other as the slutty witches, the slutty hippie, slutty little Bow Peep,  and the slutty beer wench (although I thought I was dressed as a tasteful beer wench).

As a parent, I seem to have passed the Halloween spirit on to my kids.  They love pumpkins, Halloween books, and looking at Halloween displays in stores.  On the first of October we put up our Halloween village, and they both draw bats and jack-o-lanterns to decorate the kitchen. 

Which leads me to” The Secret”.  A couple of years ago “The Secret” became a best seller, so of course I had to read it.  To me it was mostly common sense about putting a good thought out in the universe, but mostly I realized I had been using “The Secret” for years…this is how I had acquired quite a bit of my furniture (you can’t be too picky when using “The Secret”).  I also realized that I use “The Secret” every year when looking for Halloween costumes for my kids.  When they were babies I would purchase costumes for the kids because what is cuter that a baby in a bear costume???  Eventually Delaney began speaking, and from that moment,  Halloween costumes became a highly orchestrated event.  One year she decided that she and Tobey were going to be dinosaurs.  I could not get her to waver on this; obviously, she had already put the thought out into the universe and was unwilling to change.  So I had to find two freakin’ dinosaur costumes.  Rather than shop on-line, my method was to casually bring up Halloween with every adult I spoke to; the woman in the check out line, people in the bank, women at the park…..  Finally, a miracle occurred in the form of a pre-school teacher who happened to have TWO dinosaur costumes which fit my children perfectly.  The following year I had to hunt down both a robot costume and princess mini mouse costume, and again I used the same principles of putting out into the universe what was needed, and gradually all of the parts of the costumes came to me.  Incidentally, we need a fireman costume and a black ballet tutu….so if anyone has one just laying around that would be very helpful.  Happy Halloween!!