A BOOtiful Halloween- "I Got a Rock"
With cooler weather and the turning of leaves comes an exciting holiday - Halloween.
A frighteningly pagan event, actually, but most people equate it to very happy childhood memories.
What could be better than playing dress up, running helter skelter through the neighborhood and getting candy?Okay, maybe Christmas, but we're focusing on one of life's simpler pleasures.
We pretended to be someone different every year, as easy as donning a new cap.
If that isn't a great prelude for theater interest, I don't know what is! These days we must x-ray our kids' candy booty, and take them to malls or parties instead of a turn around the neighborhood.
Trick-or-treating has lost some of its thrilling fear factor and allure but it can certainly still be a fun family event.
When my daughters were toddling, our routine was getting them dressed up and off we'd go to the mall.
We'd then visit relatives where the girls got the good stuff - candy apples, popcorn balls, and BIG chocolate bars.
Definite belly aches in the making unless intake was carefully regulated.
I had to explain to them why we didn't go trick-or-treating like Charlie Brown's gang does, although they admitted getting rocks probably wouldn't be very fun.
I begged to differ - in honor of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, my little brother always got a rock in his bag.
He felt shortchanged if one failed to emerge so he could say "I got a rock.
" Halloween parties for kids are wonderful fun.
I would really deck out the house, even more than Christmas time.
One year I found a wooden bird cage at a yard sale.
I bought the cage, and affixed a red bird ornament to the perch, hanging upside down.
I then added a huge black fuzzy spider almost as big as the cage, the shameful murderer, and laced my creation with store-bought spider webbing.
I hung the cage in the foyer.
It was the first thing my little Girl Scout troop saw as they entered my house for our Halloween party.
And what a party it was!The girls took turns leading the next one through the pirate den I had created.
The "victim" put on a blindfold and was lead through a maze consisting of thin streamers hanging - pretty creepy!Then through feel they were asked to identify some pirate handiwork, including eyes (grapes) and brains (cooked and cooled pasta).
The finale, with hands held to steady them on both sides, was being asked to "walk the plank," a 2x4 straddling a basketball.
The girls would be assisted slowly up the "plank," and when the ball tipped it the girls felt weightless and a little unsteady as if balancing out on the end of the plank.
They loved it.
My daughters mention often how fun Halloween always was in our family.
I must admit, I don't think they had half as much fun enjoying it as I did providing it.
A frighteningly pagan event, actually, but most people equate it to very happy childhood memories.
What could be better than playing dress up, running helter skelter through the neighborhood and getting candy?Okay, maybe Christmas, but we're focusing on one of life's simpler pleasures.
We pretended to be someone different every year, as easy as donning a new cap.
If that isn't a great prelude for theater interest, I don't know what is! These days we must x-ray our kids' candy booty, and take them to malls or parties instead of a turn around the neighborhood.
Trick-or-treating has lost some of its thrilling fear factor and allure but it can certainly still be a fun family event.
When my daughters were toddling, our routine was getting them dressed up and off we'd go to the mall.
We'd then visit relatives where the girls got the good stuff - candy apples, popcorn balls, and BIG chocolate bars.
Definite belly aches in the making unless intake was carefully regulated.
I had to explain to them why we didn't go trick-or-treating like Charlie Brown's gang does, although they admitted getting rocks probably wouldn't be very fun.
I begged to differ - in honor of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, my little brother always got a rock in his bag.
He felt shortchanged if one failed to emerge so he could say "I got a rock.
" Halloween parties for kids are wonderful fun.
I would really deck out the house, even more than Christmas time.
One year I found a wooden bird cage at a yard sale.
I bought the cage, and affixed a red bird ornament to the perch, hanging upside down.
I then added a huge black fuzzy spider almost as big as the cage, the shameful murderer, and laced my creation with store-bought spider webbing.
I hung the cage in the foyer.
It was the first thing my little Girl Scout troop saw as they entered my house for our Halloween party.
And what a party it was!The girls took turns leading the next one through the pirate den I had created.
The "victim" put on a blindfold and was lead through a maze consisting of thin streamers hanging - pretty creepy!Then through feel they were asked to identify some pirate handiwork, including eyes (grapes) and brains (cooked and cooled pasta).
The finale, with hands held to steady them on both sides, was being asked to "walk the plank," a 2x4 straddling a basketball.
The girls would be assisted slowly up the "plank," and when the ball tipped it the girls felt weightless and a little unsteady as if balancing out on the end of the plank.
They loved it.
My daughters mention often how fun Halloween always was in our family.
I must admit, I don't think they had half as much fun enjoying it as I did providing it.