A Hanuaka of Halloween

The past few years it has occurred to me that there is a lot of money to be made during Halloween. This has occurred to me not because I am making any money on the holiday, but rather those wiser than I are making money because of me. What I recall as a single evening in the fall in which we wandered around our neighborhood, or at least no more than a three block radius has become something all together different. Today there is evil doers behind every tree, shrub, rock, bush, Bush sign and there is no way we can let our children wander the streets. At first the evenings were replaced by day time trick-or-treating but even that was deemed too unsafe. Now we spend most every weekend in October driving the kids to some new locale (parks, zoos, etc.) to trick-or-treat at a premium. The kids are still just as cute, but wandering along with a cluster of other parents in a cattle herd has lost some if its luster for me, although I understand the kids are none the wiser. We took the kids to Merrick's school party early in the week, then we went to Heritage Hill State park for some more treats. Heritage Hill is a state park about a block from the house that is home to early colonial period houses and demonstrations, such as blacksmith shops, livery stations, farmsteads. They also had some period games including apples dangling from the ceiling that the kids took turns trying to chomp on--thinking that it was cold/flu season we passed on this game. Later in the week the kids were then able to trick-or-treat in EC with their grandparents as well. Apparently Merrick was easily appeased with the initial offerings in his bag and was content to forgo all future attempts at getting more candy, unlike Sophia, and just be happy with the bird in hand. Merrick was dressed up as a fireman and convinced that he was going to "freak everyone out." While Sophia was an Alien commander complete with glow in the dark mask that did freak me out, as well as Merrick. Merrick's school party had the usually games including a pinata. Given the large German descent in the area I suspect that the pinata has been a long time tradition of Halloween. Sophia even got to take the first crack at the brightly colored paper mache donkey, the symbol of Halloween, although she no longer attends that school. Her school had no costumes (another change) nothing scary, sharp, pointy, excessively toothy, potentially offensive, political or fun could be worn. We erred on the side of caution and just kept her home that day, least her pink wardrobe offend anyone with a flamingo bias.