I love Halloween. Today I bought candy. But I don't get many halloweeners in my gated condo community so I was sure to buy candy that my boyfriend and I like.
I don't dress up anymore but I used to. One year I attended a party as Arthur Fonzarelli (or Fonzy or "The Fonz".) Back then we always made our own costumes. I wore tight jeans and a t-shirt with a cigarette pack rolled in the sleeve. The big thing was soaking my short hair in Vaseline for that Fonzie hairdo. It took about six weeks to wash it out.
My kids bought big one dollar bags of stuff at the Fall church rummage sales, like crazy clothes, hats and wigs. You can make great mustaches and beards with wigs.
The little kids would be terrified and jump behind the couch when goblins started knocking on the door.
When the older kids returned from trick or treating with their loot, and dump it out on the living room floor, I would beg them for a Milky Way but they would offer only candy corn or lifesavers.
It's different now. My boyfriend and I will show up for a while at my son's house. They live on a street of big houses with wide front porches. It's fun to sit outside and hand out the candy to the hundreds of children and adults who come by - some of them arriving in cars from outside the neighborhood - all decked out in expensive but sometimes somewhat questionable costumes.
It's fun but not as much as the old time, simpler fun.
But being with family and friends is the best. My granddaughters will be decked out as princesses, of course. But then they always look like princesses to me.
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