I'd Rather Walk in the Rain, Karen
Let the record show, HALLOWEEN IS NOT A THING THAT CAN BE RESCHEDULED. Ahem. Halloween occurs on October 31st. It doesn't matter if it's raining or snowing or a school night or what, HALLOWEEN IS SACRED AND SHAN'T BE MOVED.
Not that I have opinions about this or anything.
Alas, the forecast says the weather is going to suck on October 31st, so our little town decided they would just pick up October 31st and plop it into the middle of November 2nd. Which, DON'T DO THAT. I have a very long list of reasons why I vehemently oppose that decision, not the least of which is the fact that they scheduled trick-or-treating for a not normal time (it's always 6pm to 8pm ... AND YET THEY MADE IT 4PM TO 6PM while also screwing up the day) which is a direct conflict with a pretty major school event. Had anyone asked if any kids had plans for that time of day, they would have been met with an army of protests.
Yes, Karen, the kids do have plans for that time of day. All of them. Every freakin' kid in the district had plans of one kind or another between 4pm and 6pm. Trust me.
The whole thing is baffling.
It's especially baffling because I grew up in North Dakota. Snow was the norm for Halloween, rather than the exception. It was also pretty much always too cold to be outside without a winter coat, so forget wearing a normal costume. Unless you were dressed as Flick in A Christmas Story, you were wearing your costume over your coat. Unless ... unless you were wise enough to join in on the greatest idea that ever was had in the great state of North Dakota. We had indoor trick-or-treating. YES, WE DID. Every small (and large, really) business in town had a booth at the college sports arena. We literally all drove to The Dome to go trick-or-treating and came home with a solid stash of candy. And, if you were brave, you then doubled your stash by going around a neighborhood or two. Because, let's get real, we didn't care if it was too cold or too snowy. There was candy to be had and we were getting it.
Which is exactly how Mila feels about Halloween. In her long five years of life, she has never once been deterred by rain or cold when there was candy to be had. Halloween is her Olympics. She trains for a glorious night of candy collection all year round. Everything about Halloween is her favorite thing. She is so dedicated to winning the gold medal for candy collection, she has been doing a Halloween countdown like normal kids do a Christmas countdown. She literally has a paper chain she has been using to count the remaining sleeps standing between her and her Olympics.
So today I had to tell her we needed to add two little circles back on.
Guess how well THAT went.
The good news is that I can now trick-or-treat as a headless mom who got her head ripped off by a very angry little kindergartener. The bad news is that Raging Five-Year Old isn't much of a costume. I might need Mila to deescalate a bit.
Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Reader Comments (2)
I agree 100%! Lots of churches and groups do the trunk or treat on Halloween proper. The mall and city do a trick or treat event usually the Saturday before Halloween but those do not take the place of Halloween night trick or treating nor are they advertised as such.
Move yourself into the city of Pittsburgh! Halloween never gets changed! Trick-or-treat 5:30-7:30 no matter what! Despite the rain and WIND (holy heck, the wind!) we had over 200 kids come for treats! We do live on the border of a borough that switched their T-or-T to Sat, so I'm sure some of those kids came over too (which is fine with me, the more the merrier, teens included!)