It’s pretty fantastic having Halloween fall on a Saturday, as it gives all of us the perfect excuse to enjoy the wicked holiday all weekend long. However, despite finishing up a watch of Hollow Gate after falling asleep halfway through the night before, and enjoying a few Halloween episodes of Roseanne during Roseanne’s Halloween Hangover on WE (which is an awesome thing to do, by the way), the deep down feeling that the party’s over is impossible to shake.
As the day goes on and the rotted jack-o’-lanterns find their way into the trash to finish their slow dissolve into fly infested nothingness, the sadness of it all starts to settle in, knowing that it’ll be yet another long year of anticipation for the fun to all begin again. As somewhat depressing as that may sound, with the exit of another Halloween season comes the opportunity to reflect upon it, and when all's said and done, it was a good season indeed.
This year’s jack-o’-lanterns courtesy of my inflatable wife (right jack-o) and myself (left jack-o).
As per usual, the last few months have been filled with the usual intake of Halloween-themed snacks and goodies as well as a number of delicious seasonal beverages. That stuff is always a highlight for a junk-food junkie and lush like myself, that’s for certain. The only thing that might top overdosing on Halloween treats is spending a month plus watching horror films and various Halloween specials throughout the season, which actually goes well with all the Halloween junk food, as I have perfected the art of eating and watching my television at the same time. What can I say, I’m multitalented.
As mush as I love junk food and horror films, this Halloween was enjoyable for reasons other than orange-colored treats that may or may not cause cancer, and that comes in the form of my daughter, Hallowbaby herself, Clara.
Don’t be skerred, fall-jacket Jason.
Clara was born on October 25th of last year, which as luck would have it, meant her first birthday fell on the Sunday before Halloween. Now, for those of you who don’t know (and really, why would you?), the town I live in does trick or treat the Sunday before Halloween, unless Halloween lands on a Sunday, of course. This basically gave us an excuse to do a Halloween theme for Clara’s first birthday party, which was graciously hosted at my in-laws’ house.
Clara’s first birthday cake, designed by yours truly. The main cake is vanilla and the cupcakes chocolate, because daddy don’t play.
Hallowbaby digging into some smash cake aka cake that gets smashed by an infant and is a nightmare to clean up.
Timing wise it couldn’t have worked out any better, as immediately after we got home from Clara’s party, trick or treat had begun. While I don’t love the idea of trick or treat being held in the afternoon (usually from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM) and on a day other than Halloween, I am always thrilled by how many spooky boils and ghouls show up at my door looking for a handful of treats, and this year was no different. I didn’t keep count, though I really should have, but I am willing to bet at least 50 kids came to my door, and each one was greeted with a fistful of Halloween candy, which only ensured our home will A) be the cool house and B) never get egged.
It’s hard to make out, but four adorable girls who came to our home for trick or treat - then proceeded to sit on the corner of my lawn and dig into their stash - wrote trick or treat on my sidewalk. My black heart melted, naturally.
In any event, Halloween itself was enjoyable as well, being filled with special Halloween cookies, the flickering of Yankee Candle candles, tons of Halloween-set movies and horror films, and even a trip out to the local fairgrounds for a little Halloween fun, with a heavy focus on the word little. As great as the big day was, however, it was Clara’s birthday mixed with trick or treat that turned out to be the real highlight of this Halloween season, and I honestly couldn’t ask for anything more.
Here are some more notable photos from the past month of madness for you to dig into:
Clara’s babysitter did a little art project with the kids, and this was the result. It is Clara’s first art piece, and fittingly it’s Halloween related. You know, because she is Hallowbaby.
Clara doesn’t care much about TV, but for some reason she was drawn to Roseanne’s first Halloween special, BOO, which only proves that she has a good chance at one day being crowned “the master.”
Again, not really into TV, which only makes Clara’s interest in It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on Halloween morning a pretty special moment for me. Hallowbaby is clearly not a uniform; it’s a lifestyle.
And lastly, I freed my lovely inflatable wife from the basement so she could take this adorable photo with Clara, in full Hallowbaby attire, on Halloween.
At any rate, I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween, and I also hope you enjoyed all the Chucktober festivities I put together this year. Naturally, things are going to slow down here on the blog now that October has passed, but I do plan on trying to put together something for December. Until next time, however, thanks for reading my endless blabbering!
