Halloween Post Game Edition

Now that Halloween has come and gone, it’s time for the post game recap. As we have mentioned previously, Jeffery really doesn’t care that much about Halloween. I believe he understands the concept and he appears to like the costumes but he doesn’t eat candy and more than likely if we did nothing he would not care. However, his parents are still two big kids and we are constantly regaling each other about our own childhood Halloween adventures which usually involved going trick or treating, changing costumes and going out again. The local parents weren’t smart enough to pierce through our cleverness…ha ha ha! At least that is what WE thought. In my case changing costumes meant changing from the white bed sheet I WAS wearing to a blue one…now I was a sad ghost…I guess. The pinnacle of my genius was when I went to my own door for treats. Circled around back, changed costumes and then came back around to do it again. I’m pretty sure Mom was on to me though…probably when I said “Thanks, Mom!”

So this year, we did a little more than we had in the past and set up a display in the window showing “Ghostly Apparitions” by “AtmosFX.” If you have never seen it, it is a DVD that you project onto a sheer screen on your window. The effects are quite cool especially if you have a nice projector. Being this was our first effort, we went the inexpensive route with the projector but it still worked pretty well and it garnered more than a few stops and stares in the front of our house. To try to enhance the effect, we bought our first fog machine. This proved to be somewhat disappointing as we didn’t realize we had purchased what I called a “Martin”(me) fog machine. That’s one that works hard for three minutes and then needs a five to ten minute rest before it gets started again. Another example of “you get what you pay for.”

This year, Jeffery went as Superman. We decided to go this route because it didn’t require a mask or a wig. (For those of you who follow our blog religiously, you might remember last year’s “Thor” costume and the flowing blonde locks that made him look like what Kathy’s brother called “Goldilocks on steroids.”) Unfortunately, Jeffery is at that in-between size where he’s too big for a child’s costume and a bit too small for an adult one. After exploring different sizes, we wanted to get him a medium adult costume but by the time we followed through, they were sold out. Thus we ended up going with the large adult size and really it wasn’t too bad. We had to make a minor adjustment with the chest and the legs but overall…it worked. Jeffery of course was enamored with his new found arm and chest muscles and enjoyed admiring himself in the mirror. He didn’t escape entirely with someone touching his hair as Mom took some mousse to give him the stereotypical Superman “curl” in the front. I often wondered how stupid people were that they didn’t recognize Clark Kent as the only difference was the glasses and he didn’t have the curl up front. Talk about suspension of disbelief.

As for our Grandson Georgie, he recycled one of Jeffery’s older costumes and went as Batman. He ended being more like a mix of the “Flash” and Batman as he was so fast going from house to house he would sit on the steps waiting for that straggler “Superman” and the “Walking Dead” zombie girl that Emily dressed as. Rachel for her part didn’t participate in the actual trick or treating but she did wear a Superman shirt in support of her newly muscled cousin and she walked her hound dog “Blue” around who she dressed as a referee.

Just like last year, the neighborhood was pretty active with young ghosts, goblins, superheroes and a particularly awesome lit-up stick man. We walked along following our particular band and admiring other family’s holiday decor. Emily, who was Jeffery’s wing man had to be vigilant to keep him from wanting to enter other people’s houses. I guess he thought, “You know me, I’m Superman! You can trust me! Good to see you!”

Meanwhile, we had left my wife’s Mother at the house to give out candy. Apparently after about an hour, she decided she had enough of this and locked the front door, turned on all the house lights (which didn’t help my Ghost display) and went to her room. We had been checking on her from time to time so once Kathy realized that our sentry had left her post, she tried to get her attention as we didn’t have our house keys with us. After banging on both the front and side door, she was finally able to get her to open the door. She decided at that point to stay at home to help her to get rid of most of the candy we had as Mom had apparently been rationing the candy with a thimble. Not that I cared…More for me! Needless to say, the people who came later got a whole lot more candy than the unlucky earlier visitors.

So in the end it was a nice evening and quite likely, the last time we send Jeffery out for trick or treating.  He will be thirteen next year and he will probably have a full mustache and beard by then the way his facial hair is growing. Maybe he could go as “Classic GI Joe” with lifelike hair and beard…(telling my age there…)