Post-Halloween Debrief

It took us a long time to establish a Halloween tradition (we tried parties, we tried in-and-out of carseats, we tried running around a friend's neighborhood), but now that our Halloween Hayride is firmly established (this was the fifth year; see years 1 [sort-of], 2, 3 and 4), we all love it and I'd like to think it will lodge in the boys' memories.

After a dinner of pumpkin-face bagel melts (do you know how hard it is to find orange cheese around here?),

And some last-minute decorating (because I felt bad about my curmudgeony attitude in the pre-Halloween post),

We piled into the hay wagon.

The boys largely made their own costumes, as usual, using various pieces of velour, hats/masks and the papier mache weapons we fashioned earlier in the month.

It was a balmy night, and I was chastened for my enforcement of long-underwear-wearing. By the time we got to the grand-finale creepy yard, most costume parts had been shed

(the obligatory M with the chainsaw massacre photo)

After we got home, (and after the obligatory candy meltdown), C read us "The Raven," which is a bit too convoluted to be spooky to seven-year-olds.

And after everyone went to bed, I sat up with the jack-o'-lanterns, feeling a bit of melancholy post-holiday let-down, which seems strange for Halloween (isn't that supposed to be reserved for Christmas?). 

Maybe the spirits passing through the veil between worlds on Samhain were not sufficiently frightened away by our spooky pumpkins. Or maybe every holiday that marks the growth and change of my children is like a door slamming closed behind me. Never again will there be two little boys in my house dressed as Thing 1 and Thing 2, or a pair of butterflies. Never again will M be terrified of his own owl or ghost costume. I know this stream only flows one way, but sometimes I just wish it would slow down a bit.