Halloween Haberdashery

After I stopped being a kid, Halloween was decidedly less fun. Still fun, but less so. But now that Anna's getting older and getting into it, it has become super fun again. She loves planning her costume and scheming about all the candy she's going to get. She's even sort of into the scary stuff, which is new this year. Not like full-blown haunted houses, but she's totally loving the spiders and bats and creepy food.

In fact, here's the dinner menu we dreamed up for tomorrow:

• blood and guts (spaghetti)
• hairy witch fingers (parmesan breadsticks)
• broccoli (because it's good for you)
• and used q-tips (mini marshmallows dipped in melted butterscotch or peanut butter chips)

I can't wait. It's going to be awesome. There are so many good things about this holiday: the fact that it's really focused on going house to house and getting candy, apple uglies (click here if you don't know what awesomeness I'm referring to), other good food, eating all of the halloween candy before Halloween, costumes, movies, getting more candy when your child goes trick or treating . . . The list could go on and on.

Speaking of apple uglies, here are the apples we did this year, just so we have a record of the annual awesomeness.

If my hunches are correct and that red licorice rope is supposed to be head gear (like she even knows what that is), I think Anna's totally wins for ugliest. Mine might win for most inedible (since the paper got stuck to the caramel), but what was I supposed to do? He needed a cape!

Now for a bit about movies. Like I said, we're not fully into the scary stuff of Halloween yet, but I look forward to the day when we can watch Wait Until Dark or some Hitchcock together.

But that's as far as I go because I'm a complete pansy when it comes to scary movies. I hate them. Being haunted by the images from The Ring for the next month after I saw it really solidified this decision. There is just no reason to make myself sit through something like that.

So that's creepy/demented scary, but what about movies that are surprise scary? Still hate them. I made this decision around the time I saw What Lies Beneath. I even went to see When a Stranger Calls a few years later when I doubted this decision, but that was the last "scary" movie I've seen (besides the mild ones I can handle). I'm serious about it.

Anyhow, that's a little bit of fun we've had so far. More to be had tomorrow. Check back soon to see how mondo cool our costumes turned out.