Guys, MILESTONE TIME. We've just hit our tenth halloween over here at A New Nill. There wasn't a post ten years ago, but Ashton (only child at the time) looked like this.
This was before we knew about allergies and eczema and I cringe looking at his skin :( Oh god plus his cradle cap that was a scaly mess - it's all so painful. BUT, Ashton today, 10 years later, is pretty perfect.
Big success. Big. Huge. AND we had GG, Erik and the Braydens visiting this past weekend too so things were lively!
Back to Halloween though. Some huge differences this year - one, we used leftover pumpkins from Brae Burn. Like, we didn't even go pick them out. Jason brought them home and the boys were like, *shrug*. Sure those look good.
Alex's:
Ashton's:
Secondly, if Ashton had actually wanted to, I would TOTALLY have sent them out trick or treating on their own. They know the neighborhood and all the people so well, it just felt like they definitely could have done it. Luckily, they asked us to walk with them anyway :)
Lastly and this is my saddest observation. It's really no longer "trick or treating". It's "grab candy from an unmanned table in front of someone's house".
And while I'm on this - what is with the ziplock bags?? The boys must have come home with EASILY 30 ziplocks each. One piece of candy isn't enough? Why not put everything in one bowl with a sign that says "take several"? SO many houses did this and it struck me as beyond wasteful. I saved the collection for re-use but like, yuck.
Back to my original rant. I get that last year, with COVID, it was all about contactless this and that. So everyone put candy outside for kids to just take. No doorbell ringing, no thank yous, no Happy Halloweens. This year, maybe it was the same rationale, but if you ask me the faceless grabbing is probably here to stay. I mean people that wanted to be friendly sat outside in chairs and around firepits, but others I imagine relished not having to get up from the couch every other minute to greet trick or treaters. And honestly, as a parent, we covered the neighborhood in half the time. But it wasn't the same :-/
The costumes also went off without a lot of fanfare. Ashton wanted to just wear his football uniform and Alex his hockey pads, but no no no. I forced them into a SWAT outfit and some sort of GI Joe whose pants were too small.
Our method of anonymous candy distribution was that butler behind Alex. He moved and spoke, it was creepy. Alex was SUPER into decorating this year, he weirdly spent a ton of time talking about it. Here's a house tour -> https://youtu.be/af4qo1PqJoA
And that's about it guys. We walked around with our usual friends and since it was a Sunday night, we were out early and in early. My kind of Halloween ;)
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