Halloween 2015

I was raised on ward trunk-or-treats and my mom was afraid of having her kids wander the ghetto neighborhoods of Las Vegas, so we were never allowed to go trick-or-treating. I never went. After I got married, Josh and I participated in passing out candy for trunk-or-treaters and trick-or-treaters, but of course by then we were too old to beg for candy ourselves. Scarlet has been too young until now to go herself, leading up to the point of this blog: today for the first time, Josh and I were able to go trick-or-treating with our daughter.

My sister and her kids are in town for their annual Halloween visit--Cornbelly's, Boo at the Zoo, Wheeler Farm--and this year the Boo at the Zoo was held the weekend before Halloween so they weren't able to attend. Instead, we decided to go trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. I didn't know how receptive our neighbors would be to trick-or-treaters. In our apartment complex, only one porch light was on (ours) and only one family was prepared with candy to pass out (ours). This year we had no trick-or-treaters but I like to be prepared just in case, so we have a lot of leftover candy. My point about our complex is that I wasn't certain people would be very willing to pass out candy in the houses surrounding our complex. Compounding that issue was the fact that we got a late start on trick-or-treating after dinner. By the time everyone was dressed and ready, it was eight o'clock, which happens to be Scarlet's bedtime. Josh said his parents used to lock up and turn out the lights by eight o'clock on Halloween, and that he used to trick-or-treat at six. That made me really worried that we were too late.

But I had no reason to fear. We only went down a few local neighborhoods and in less than an hour, my nephews and nieces had full buckets of candy, with three full-size candy bars apiece. I was amazed at the generosity of these people and felt a lot of gratitude for them because they made my family so happy on their visit. In Las Vegas, my mom's neighborhood gets a lot of traffic because people drive their kids into the neighborhoods and stay in their cars on the street the entire time, so there's a ridiculous traffic jam along all the streets in the entire block. My mom resents so many people being bussed in from all over the valley because she goes broke trying to get enough candy to last the night, and I completely understand. That seems to take away from the spirit of the holiday when you seek out the best neighborhoods to try to score the most candy. It's also hard in Las Vegas because the city never sleeps, so teenagers will ring doorbells at close to ten at night to fill up their bags one more time. A family friend who lives in the same neighborhood as my mom posted on Facebook tonight that in two and a half hours, she passed out more than five hundred pieces of candy. It's just insanity there.

In my neighborhood here, however, I was only met with gracious and generous people who shared their candy with smiles and compliments on costumes. It was such a wonderfully positive experience that I vowed to also be one of those fun homeowners who shares candy all night long and enjoys every minute of it. I want to pay forward the happiness my family felt tonight.

Scarlet was dressed up as Anna from Frozen and James was Olaf (I had to make his costume because the stores didn't carry his size). We all stopped by a house that puts on a Halloween-themed light show after trick-or-treating, to end our night before walking home. It was a wonderful night of fun and a perfect example of why this is one of my all-time favorite holidays!