A Sacrament and a COVID Halloween

October 31, 2020 was a pretty unique day! Besides the fact that it was a blue moon and we were recovering from a blizzard the day before, it was Ashton's First Communion! As a CCD teacher (ahem), this means that he was receiving the Sacrament of the Eucharist, the body and blood of Christ, for the first time. Now this is a big deal in the Roman Catholic church and I still remember my first communion, my dress, the white patent leather shoes, and the party afterwards. It usually happens in the Spring but since we were on lockdown basically, it was rescheduled to several Saturdays this fall and Ashton's was on Halloween. He wore a blazer and tie and generally looked so big I almost couldn't take it. We had to leave Alex at a friend's because, no siblings, and the church, although empty, still felt special.

And that was it! No brunch afterwards, no nothing, but a mere 5 hours later and it was time for Halloween! 

Our neighborhood, I will say, really stepped it up. People sat around their firepits in order to greet trick-or-treaters outside and most houses had a table or some other kind of display where kids could take candy in a socially distanced way. We walked around with the Stahls and the kids got a TON of candy - everyone really overcompensated. There was no pizza party or hanging out after, and it was cold, but there was no wind and ended up being quite enjoyable :) 

First, our set up. Ooo, a man-eating spider!!

And then the costumes. Alex was a skeleton and Ashton, for the second year in a row, just decided to wear his football outfit.

NOT PICTURED: the actual trick-or-treating. You guys have seen enough blurry night time shots over the years. 

Back at the house, the sorting begins:

Notice Jason helping in the background LOL.

And just because this post is feeling a tad lack-luster (for how AWESOME my Halloween posts usually are ;) ) I'm going to link to Ashton and Alex's first Halloween as brothers, when everything felt like this.

We are heading back to hockey practices this afternoon after a two week shut-down, but cases are on the rise again here. Add to that, it's been 5 days and they still haven't called the presidential election, and things are feeling a bit precarious. Off I go to eat some candy...