Holy Halloween Tradition

Oddness.

This week has been just plain disrupted.

In addition to Skywalker needing some time home to recoup from Second-Wave-H1N1 (he was overdoing it at work, and the cough came BACK!! Another tip to add to my previous post) We've had three (almost) Halloweens... A ward party, a voice-class party, and trick or treating. This has been suuuuch a buildup in anticipation for my kids. Crazy. There were those yarn braids (which I didn't JUST do for Halloween, you remember); there was the sewing back together of slightly-ragged DI princess dresses. Every single day since I bought the dresses the girls would ask, "princess dress? Princess dress?" (or in the case of Loli and Jaws, "Mom, when's Halloween? Is it next week? How many days?)

My kids went trick-or-treating together for the first time last night, and they had a ball. I had to wonder, as we walked around in the dark, going from one, sumptuous Park-City lodge-style home to another (we visited my sis for Halloween this year. We don't get up to see them much and it seemed like a good excuse) what they were thinking. Loli taught them the proper Trick-Or-Treating Ettiquite, and it was four flying, sparkly skirts dashing from house to house, and a chorus of husky/supersonic voices every time a door was opened. I wonder, do my bright-eyed children feel the same sort of Glee I felt as a child on Halloween? Are Bella and May too foreign to the concept yet, and is Jaws too young, to fully appreciate the joy that is yearly tradition? Will they be thinking about Halloween occasionally all year long, and then when we come upon the middle of September and the leaves start changing and the air gets that bite to it that somehow makes me want to guzzle gallons of cider, will their minds turn to pumpkins and orange-lit houses and maniacal giggling as timid fingers press a doorbell?

I'm so glad my girls got to go trick or treating. There was a mix up about timing with my family, and for a while I was pretty worried trick-or-treating wouldn't work out this year. I got this terrible sinking feeling, that all I had been promising my kids for a month wouldn't pan out. It's so silly, really. Halloween? Candy? A completely frivolous, non-religious holiday for us folk here in Utah, at least. I didn't realize it was that important to me.

I guess, for me at least, there's something religious about tradition, about family time, about seeing people we don't always see, perhaps. And about Mom and Dad making an effort to create a gleeful, sugar-high-filled, whimsical experience that will resonate in childish memories throughout the year, adding a little more anticipation with each year. As my kids get older, it matters more to them. As they get older, it becomes security... the promise of a wonderful experience, of a day just for kids.

Happy Halloween everybody. I hope all your candy's gone. Because if not, I may be visiting you in the near future... our kids downed ours within two hours, and I didn't get a chance to extract the obligatory chocolate tax that all parents are entitled to. Just a piece of advice: if you know I'm coming, hide the chocolate.