Halloween 2015

As is often the case, Halloween events started a couple weekends before Halloween proper this year. Marcus was Elliott from E.T., though it wasn't until Halloween that he could actually bring along his bike. I was Princess Leia because it's easy and classic. Samantha was an astronaut, mostly because I found the costume for $9.99 at H&M and thought it was cute and better-made than most kids' Halloween costumes. When I brought it home, she said, "Oh boy! I always thought I wanted to be a Halloween costume that is a scientist and that might go up in a rocket!" Robert, per Samantha's request, was "a huge, huge, huge black cat." He kept asking if perhaps he might be something a tad cooler, but Samantha was extremely definite, so, loving father that he is, a cat he was.

For our first Halloween event, we went to a kids' costume party at the home of one of my co-workers, in Lynnfield. Marcus set off their stomp rockets in the backyard approximately 400 times, and he also got a kick out of voting for the best adult costume there, and voted for "the devil's lawyer" (one of my other co-workers). Samantha just loved eating nonstop candy and cupcakes for a couple hours, while playing on the swingset (and feeding peanut butter M&Ms to a random two-year-old girl there, nearly giving me a heart attack because, well, allergies. Spoiler alert: everyone was fine).

The weekend before Halloween, we went to a Boo at the Zoo and the Pru Boo, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. The zoo trick-or-treating was mostly winding down by the time we arrived, but the zoo playground is always great, and it was also fun to see the gorillas playing with the remainders of their Halloween treat pumpkins.

The Pru Boo, as always, was great. They had their usual decorate-a-Zipcar area, a frost-your-own cookie table, a magic show, wandering sea creatures from the aquarium, and a science experiment table from the Museum of Science that Marcus spent about forty-five minutes working at.

As it got closer to Halloween, we carved pumpkins. Samantha designed hers, and Robert implemented it, but Marcus carved his entirely by himself--without even drawing a bit of blood! Meanwhile, I made "autumn leaf" sugar cookies with variegated colors of dough for a work function.

The night before Halloween, I took the kids to a Halloween potluck/costume parade party at Samantha's daycare. They both loved it--Marcus hung out with Giancarlo, who used to go to the daycare when he was there and is now in third grade at a different school, and Samantha showed off her costume with Gio (Giancarlo's little brother--another astronaut) and Sophie (Elsa). Her group had two astronauts, two princesses, a monkey, and a doctor, which seemed an interesting microcosm of society.

On Halloween day (a Saturday this year), I made pumpkin pancakes for breakfast and then Robert took the kids to karate. We went to the Titus Sparrow Park Halloween pre-trick-or-treat party as always, hanging out with lots of Marcus's friends from school there (Oliver, Grady, Hudson, Evan, Matthias, and others) and then trick-or-treated up and down the South End streets off Columbus until everyone was worn out.

Marcus got so many compliments on his costume from the adults giving out candy, who all appreciated his Elliott and several times told him he "won" Halloween and should take extra candy for the coolness factor. We attempted to go into a haunted house set up in the basement of one of the big apartment buildings on Wellington Street, but both kids were utterly terrified, so we scooted out and visited with people on the street instead before heading home, including Robert, a sweet kid from Marcus's class, and a random man with two live snakes around his neck. File that last one under "not a costume."

 

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Created: 10/31/15. Last Modified: 10/31/15.