Halloween Village

Scary?

Tina leading the party

     People in Paul's neighborhood go all out for Halloween.   The Kalils were definitely in the spirit.  We carved Sammy's pumpkin with a template, Charlie's with an eye to making it as fierce as possible, and Jack's from a design that he found online.  Paul and I scooped out and sorted  the goop so that  Tina could roast the seeds.  The three Jack-o-lanterns joined the pumpkin that Jack had decorated for his report on Abraham Lincoln.

Skeleton princes bowling

Captain America being fierce

     Tina organized  Sammy's preschool class party.   She drew Jack-o-lantern faces on 16 clementine oranges to put in the kid's party favor bags.  We madly cut out eyeballs for the Decorate the Monster game.  At party time, we helped the 4-year- olds into their costumes. The boys became knights, Ninjas, and pirates, but all of the girls were princesses or other Disney characters.  What does that tell you about the future? I hope nothing.  My favorite was the skeleton princess.  The kids tossed bean-filled balloons into plastic pumpkins, decorated a monster, and rolled gourds onto white toilet paper rolls in Ghost Bowling.  Sammy, in his Captain America costume, joined in all the fun.

Tattoo parlor

Finished product

     Charlie wanted to dress as  Derek Rose, the Chicago Bulls basketball player, for Halloween.  Tina carefully researched Derek Rose's tattoos.  Charlie held stock still for almost an hour while Tina drew the tattoos all over his arms and upper back.
     At Jack and Charlie's school, the children and teachers parade around the block in their costumes, chanting, "Happy Halloween."  Jack led the line in his   "I'm made of money" costume.

Made of money

     Evanston has a rule that trick-or treating may only happen between 5 and 7 PM.  The tiniest kids, dressed to the teeth, toddled around in the dusk with their parents.  The parents were in costume, too.  I had a long, strange conversation with a white-bearded Merlin who seemed to think I would care about characters in his favorite TV show.  Another father made Charlie's day by greeting him with, "Hello, Mr.  Rose.  I am so happy to meet you.  If  I may ask, could I have your autograph?  And would you give my daughter some candy?"

Trick- or -treating

      After the first wave of toddlers seemed to be finished, we left a big bowl of candy on the front porch and set off door-to door.   Almost everyone  who answered our knock was dressed in full costume-- a Valkyrie and a Sponge Bob and a Cat in the Hat.  One man, in a hard hat and tool belt, set his bowl of candy on sawhorses  in his front  yard  with the sign, "Renovation of Doom."  In spite of the cold, there were several porch parties going on, neighbors with  costumes and cocktails waiting for the trick-or-treaters.  One neighbor had an eyeball pinata hanging in her front yard, and the kids took a whack at it. Charlie called out to his friends and  Paul greeted the drummer in his band.  We met the one-year old who was just  adopted from Korea last week, whose house Tina had decorated with a big "Welcome Home" banner.  A teenager in school uniform walked home  down the middle of the street,  way too cool to mix with the little kids.  "Hey, Samir, can you catch? "  called a woman in her doorway, and tossed him a candy bar from the bowl on her porch.
      We were back at Paul's house by 7, so the boys had plenty of time to eat their fill of candy before going to bed.

Sammy ponders candy