Initial Impressions: LSU 11, Auburn 48

Sure, it’s Halloween, but that doesn’t mean you still don’t have your ordinary responsibilities and stuff. Lil Posette missed her piano lesson last week and this week had a full one hour session to make up for it.

We had no idea what to expect from trick or treaters this year. To be honest, despite living in the suburbs, we always have what I would call disappointing levels of participation from the neighborhood. Not so bad that the street is entirely dark, but if you live out here because you likely have kids, the least you can do is turn on the porch light and set out a bowl of candy.

Now, with COVID, I expected participation to drop even further, but that’s no reason to let the kids down. Halloween, maybe even more than Christmas, is a little kid’s holiday. And with the excuse to bail out on Halloween, I’m worried more people in the neighborhood will take up the chance.

So we sat down as a family and made bags of candy to pass out. Now, finding the right mix of candy is pretty important. We like a fruity/chocolatey mix, so we had a bag of Skittles and Starbursts to pair with Kit Kats and Reese’s peanut butter cups. On top of that, we added some lollipops, because lollipops are awesome.

We put an assortment of each kind of candy in Ziplac bags, and worked out a bit of an assembly line system , which Lil Poseur did his best to destroy at every opportunity. Let’s just say not every bag had a peanut butter cup in it.

Grandma came by with a folding card table, which we put out in the front yard by the sidewalk so people wouldn’t have to walk up the path to the door. Make it easy. On the table, we loaded up all of the individual Ziploc bags, so the trick or treaters could come by and take a bag.

For some reason, we own a folding sandwich chalk board, which then meant sending the kids on a wild goose chase through their mammoth pile of craft products in order to find chalk. Finally, we found a good piece, and wrote PLEASE TAKE ONE BAG on each side. I let the kids do it, because it is extra cute to have a sign drawn by a little kid. My bad handwriting isn’t cute, it’s just sad.

Grandma then hustled the kids into the costumes so they could go trick or treating, which is a complete waste of time. Our neighborhood is not just low participation, but late participating, and keeping the kids energy up for two hours is a tall order. Chill out, maybe have some candy corn, and there’s no rush to get out of the house or keep the kids amped up.

However, we decided to set up each of the adults in one of the rooms of the house, so the kids could trick or treat inside. I could shovel handfuls of candy at them as I ooohed and aaahed over their costumes as if I hadn’t seen them before. Critically, this bought us some time. Not only did they have something fun to do, but afterwards, they had candy to start consuming.

By about 5:30, Grandma finally ran out of patience and took the kids out, neighbors be damned. She doesn’t want the kids trick or treating at night. But its cool, we have a flashlight. So I don’t really get the concern about lateness, they will be with us, and we aren’t gonna let them run in the street or anything.

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During all of this, there was an LSU game on the background. I have to tell you, our Halloween was more interesting and certainly more enjoyable.

Happy Halloween.