Obligatory Halloween Post

Honey asked me what the term was for a Scrooge at Halloween. I don't know, but I need to find out. Because whatever it is, I am one.

Wicked Witch? I don't know.

I don't dislike Halloween. It just makes me tired. I feel drained and ready for a long winters nap when it's all over.

One thing that makes me tired is shopping with the girls for an age appropriate, modest costume.

My friend Shelly says that I have a gift of talking my kids in to loving any idea. And most of the time, I can. But, it turns out, Halloween is my Achilles heal. When Halloween is the topic, the girls have AN OPINION, and IDEAS, and VISION. And all of those ideas usually involve some combination of short, strapless, form-fitting, and midriff showing.

My mom would say that is the reason she always made my costumes.

Since I don't generally make costumes, my only defense is, "I told you when you bought it you would have to wear a shirt underneath."


Here's what we came up with for this year: a football player, a movie star, and some sort of a school girl witch. There were no tears during the getting dressed part, which is a first for us.

Mary Tutu is the movie star. In the picture on the front of the costume package the girl dressed up is holding an award. For Mary TuTu, no award = no costume. My mom found an award that looks like an Oscar and she carried that thing around all. night. long. I didn't have to hold it or stick it in my purse once.

The day she got it, I heard her practicing her acceptance speech in the bathroom. "Thank you, thank you. Yes, I deserve it...thank you so much!"

The other reason Halloween makes me tired is that it just keeps going and going and going. Since when did it take a week to celebrate Halloween?

Our school's Fall Festival was the week before Halloween. The kids love going to the festival and seeing all of their teachers and friends. And it's an OK way to spend 2 hours and $40...it's just not my thing.

One of the fundraisers at the festival is the class pumpkin auction. The teachers get to keep whatever money their class pumpkin brings in. PTA donates the pumpkins, but I volunteered to decorate the pumpkins for the kids' teachers.

Brooke's class pumpkin


Mary TuTu's class pumpkin

Bubba's class pumpkin

Bubba's was actually the easiest to make, it just took a while for the Mod Podge to dry. Gran's Cricket and large supply of cute paper came to the rescue when we were cutting the spiders. I love that thing. I get first dibs on the Cricket when Gran dies.

Brooke's was finished first. I don't recommend rub-ons for real pumpkins. They were hard to keep stuck to the pumpkin. We finally put a couple of coats of Mod Podge on that one, too.

Mary TuTu's was a disaster. It started out as a bat, but another class had already made one just like it, so we adapted it to a vampire. She wanted it blue, and the only blue paint I had was tempera paint.

DO NOT USE TEMPERA PAINT ON A REAL PUMPKIN. IT WON'T STICK.

After waiting all day for the tempera paint to dry, we scrubbed it off and used spray paint. It worked better, but it was still easy to chip. Glitter and curly ribbon cover a multitude of sins.

I'm so glad another Halloween is in the books!

And...Bah-humbug!