Did you survive Halloween?
I decided to do the right thing and be prepared for trick or treaters. I had one group of three young children and they were awful! They demanded candy (No sweet “Trick or Treat?”), snatched it from the bowl before I could even offer it (one girl stuck her hand through a hole in my screen door to get it), and left without saying thank you. And these kids were being supervised by their parents!
So, this week, I want to hear how you made it through Halloween.
Whine on.
Lisa – I admire you for facing this. I didn’t need to survive – we disarm the bell and are mostly in a street with older folk so no children. There also seems to be an understanding that if you don’t put some decs out or a pumpkin candle people know you do not want to participate (or havn’t anything in). We actually forgot to take out the bell but we were left alone – i think we ignored it for too many years. We did have callers one year – we didn’t have any treats in – not something we stock as we are a bit health conscious and we forgot all about it. We argued about who would go back with a few apples – can’t remember the outcome but word soon got round not to call at ours!!
Fortunately, Hallowe’en is not the stab in the heart it used to be. Part of that is the shift in my attitude, but part of it is that we moved into a condo complex some years ago. While there are a handful of families with children, they tend to go Trick or Treating in the larger neighbourhood area rather than our complex. I did get roped into a Hallowe’en party, which had a mix of teens and adults. I played DJ and judged a costume contest (youth winner was dressed as a flapper, and adult tied winners were a hand-made toilet-paper roll dress and a handmade genie complete with old oil lamp). I’m looking forward to Christmas this year, because I get to (finally) reveal to my niece that we are taking her to Disney World!
Halloween, my husband and I went to the movies. In the past Halloween was horrible, and this year we went to Halloween party and got dressed up whic I haven’t done in 20 years.
But this season is a really rough one, due to it being the anniversary of our sons birth and our adoption of him for a week or so, until the birth parents changed their mind and we had to literally return him to the attorneys office . Thinking of his birthday and I was at my chorus rehearsal last night and our conductor brought her two girls like 3 and 5′ , teeing aware he will never know us and we won’t attend ball games , was really sad. The tears in this past week, keep flowing, it is better than the first year after, but still devastating and painful. I do have some good supports but it is like no other loss I have experienced. Thanks for letting me share my story, sometimes I feel uncomfortable sharing it due to we had a child I of only briefly, but the result is I am a nomo as Jody Day would say.
Halloween does not hurt the way it once did, and even at the height of my pain over stillbirth and childlessness, I always took some pleasure out of carving a pumpkin and handing out treats to the cute kids in our neighbourhood. I think it probably bothers my husband more than it bothers me these days. I see him giving wistful looks to the toddlers navigating our front doorstep. THAT makes me sad. 🙁
What made Halloween difficult this year was the weather: very cold & rainy. We only had 36 kids, which is the lowest number we’ve ever had. I was getting wet just sticking my head out the door to hand them their candy! We had a lot of leftovers. :p
I surrvived Halloween and I even surrvived a pregnancy announcement at work I on Halloween!
I think I have mentioned that I have a new job, they are all aware I don’t have kids but don’t know why and ths is a little “freeing”, this meant there were no “whispers” of “how do we tell her without upsetting her?” even though I almost always knew and was more frustrated with the whispers. In fact I didn’t have one clue this lady was pregnant where I used to be hyper sensitive. However I know that even the good days are still one day at a time and another pregnancy announcement may upset me, but that is okay because I will surrvive that as well.
We turned out the lights and went out to eat for a nice dinne!