Halloween 2020

It was a little smaller than usual, and a little more subdued, but we still had fun!

We carved our jack o'lantern this morning, because it was the only time our whole family has been together for the last week (more on that later). But CC refused to participate anyway -- a 9-year-old attitude is no joke, people -- so I guess we shouldn't have bothered!

This was the first year that we haven't had coordinated Halloween costumes, and it made me a little sad. Our kids have really gotten into the Harry Potter books lately, so CC was determined to be Hermione. Sweet Pea had agreed to be Hedwig the owl, but Little Man absolutely put his foot down about being Harry Potter. Sigh. But he and Sweet Pea ultimately decided to coordinate their costumes -- he was the Mandalorian, and she was Baby Yoda.

(Funny story: they apparently only make Baby Yoda costumes for actual babies. So a size 3T was the largest one we could find, but Sweet Pea didn't skip a beat. So yes, this 8-year-old is wearing a size 3 costume!)

We practiced safe, socially distant trick or treating (as demonstrated by our pumpkin). We had a 10-foot-long candy chute that we used to dispense candy to the local kids, although we ended up with a lot of extra because we had less than half the normal amount of trick or treaters.

Plenty of our neighbors weren't comfortable accepting trick or treaters this year, which was totally understandable. One of them was Alice, although she made a special exception for our 3 munchkins, of course!

Because we wanted trick or treaters to stay 10 feet away, we couldn't rely on the doorbell to tell us when kids had arrived. So MJ and I set up chairs on the porch, poured ourselves some adult beverages, and listened to music while sliding candy down the tube. It ended up being a really pleasant way to spend Halloween evening! Maybe we'll make it a tradition.

As for the kids, this was the first year we've allowed them to go trick or treating without us. They promised to stay together, and we called them on their Gizmos every once in a while to check up on them. It worked well -- Hermione, Mando and Baby Yoda came trudging back home at 7:40, a shockingly appropriate time. Our neighbors lavished candy on the kids -- either from sympathy about the pandemic, or because there were so few trick or treaters -- and now we have an obscene amount of it in our house!