VOTE
No really. There is still time. Go do it.
That being said, I wanted to take some time to talk about our Halloween. I stressed about Halloween. Why did I stress? Like it or not, we are still in a global pandemic. Simply saying that things are getting better does not make it true. I’ll be honest. My 7 year old is missing school. He misses his friends, he misses his teacher, he misses RECESS. We are lucky enough to be able to keep him home. I plan on keeping him home at least until after Christmas. I want to see what the next few months will bring before I send him back. He’s doing really well from home and testing really well he just is a hugely social child missing out on serious socialization. Was I really going to deny him his favorite holiday? The idea of dressing up as a skeleton soldier marching down the street and collecting all of the candy he possibly could was on his mind for months. He has been talking about it for months. After going back and forth mentally and giving myself anxiety about it, I finally just gave him two options. The first option was heading to our local state park, dressing up, visiting the campsites to get candy and driving home. The second option was to stay at home, decorate the house, and we would hide candy around the house for him to find. I didn’t even get all of the words out of my mouth before he was bouncing around the house screaming about how excited he would be to decorate and find candy around the house. Decision made. Stressing over. He was so very excited. I ran out and purchased all of the supplies. Construction paper, candy, snacks, pizza for dinner and cookies were all on the list. The day of Halloween, we pulled out the supplies and proceeded to craft Jack-O-Lanterns, ghosts, bats, and other various spoooooky things. We played spooky video games, and busted out a ghost themed board game. When it was time, he put on his costume and stayed in his room with his brother while we hid candy all around the house. We hung up all of the decorations and blasted scary sounds from the computer. We turned off all of the lights, gave both of them flashlights and listened to them run around the house in the dark. Every time a piece of candy was found he shrieked with delight. “STARBURSTS! LET’S GO” he screamed. He taunted his 14 year old brother as they both searched. My husband burst forth from the darkness and scared him badly. Scream laughing he tore across the house continuing the search. (I bought way to much candy for 2 children. Especially when I can’t have any and it just stares at me) When it was all said and done, they both had a ridiculous amount of candy and I received giant hugs, thank you’s, and chatter about how much fun he had.
In this year where we are so afraid of missed milestones and traditions, shouldn’t it be time to create new memories outside of the norm? He will remember this Halloween. He will remember costumes he wore other years but most of the walking around to strangers houses collecting candy will blur together. Who knows, this may be exactly what he wants to do next year when (hopefully) things are mostly back to normal. Instead of being sad about the milestones our children may be missing, maybe we can be adaptive and give them new milestones. New memories. Sitting around being sad or angry about something we cannot control is counterproductive to raising an adaptive creative person. I’m happy with the choice we made this year. I’m happy with the memories we created. If he wants to do it again next year then so shall it be. It will be bigger than this year. If he chooses dressing up and walking around for candy, then that is what we will do. When life hands you lemons you make lemonade right? We made some awesome lemonade this Halloween and I have zero regrets.
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