Halloween is my favorite holiday. It’s fun, you can be someone else for a day, there’s no pressure to find the right gift and get it wrapped perfectly, and if Mother Nature is happy, she sometimes give us good weather for it. This year, she did.
The past couple of Halloween nights were rainy, windy, and cold. We were both hopeful that this year would be the best year ever since Halloween fell on a Saturday and we would have a fantastic night. And that’s exactly what happened. I was a little concerned that all the virus stuff would keep people away, but it didn’t. This year was a normal Halloween, with the exception that we got to party a little earlier because it was Saturday. And instead of letting the kids pick candy out of bowl, we made treat bags for them. Which will be a tradition going forward, that was a ton of fun!
Long before the township put out the rules / suggestions about Halloween, I thought it would be a great idea to make treat bags for the kids. We used to do that when I was a kid when my parents gave out candy. J loved the idea too, so he bought some treat bags that came with a bunch of fun things like stickers, temporary tattoos, note pads, and stamps. I made a Halloween scene coloring book page, had them printed and bought crayons to go along with it. We also bought some candy of course. The Thursday before Halloween he and I stuffed the bags with everything we bought and then added some one-dollar and five-dollar bills to some of the bags. That was J’s idea. It was a well-oiled assembly line with lots of math involved. We had 50 bags, but not 50 pieces of everything. Every bag got a coloring book page, crayons, a note pad, and a piece of candy. Every other bag got a sticker and opposite those bags got a stamp. The tattoos and pencils got randomly added to bags.
Friday night was pumpkin carving night. J used a drill to make a circle geometry design in his pumpkin. I opted for a more traditional carving of a face with a crescent moon and star as her eyes and a toothy grin as her smile. She was my witchy pumpkin. It’s always fun carving pumpkins with J; one of my favorite activities for the year.
Click on me with the pumpkin in the middle to see my video!
Then Halloween on Saturday! I took my walk in the morning under the full moon’s light. When I got back to the house, the moon was shining down on the side of the house, right on the space where I put the crystals out to charge. I figured if this is a good spot for some moon energy for the crystals, it would be a good spot for me. So, I stood out there in Tadasana or Mountain Pose under the moonlight and did my daily meditation. The moon’s energy felt so energizing. After, I worked on a couple graphics for Circlegoddess Designs and posted them. Then, off to the races to prepare food for the dinner party we were having before trick-or-treating. As always, we made too much food. The menu consisted of pumpkin deviled eggs, a charcuterie platter, ghost pizza bagels, pasta with veggie sauce, and a salad. That’s just what we made. My in-laws brought over meatballs and cookies. My sister-in-law and niece brought over mummy hot dogs and mummy jalapeño poppers. Our neighbor brought over the prettiest and most delicious cake I’ve ever seen along with some other pastries. Seriously, no one goes hungry at a Jensen party.
Between all the cooking, I was able to get in a 2-mile run around the hood. It was actually pretty fun. I saw a bunch of people setting up for trick-or-treating, which made me happy and hopeful that this would be a normal Halloween.
After I got cleaned up after my run, I finished up doing a few more things in the kitchen and got my costume on right before everyone came over. We had less people at the party this year, my in-laws, neighbor and one friend. Less than 10 at the gathering, so we were compliant. Plus 4 of them were out trick-or-treating. Everyone brought over candy and continued filling our treat bags with it. Those bags were so stuffed! J sealed the bags and placed them on the table we had set out for the trick-or-treaters. It looked wonderful!
Everyone filled up on appetizers and didn’t leave much room for dinner. But everyone enjoyed the food. Especially the cake my neighbor brought over. Everyone raved about it all night. By the time we were eating dinner, I was not at all hungry for any of the food I made. I ate a salad and called it a day.
We all went down to the garage a little before 6 and made sure everything was set up. The treat bags were all lined up on the table, the bar was ready to go with the hot apple cider and rum, and we snapped a couple pictures of everyone in costume. The kids arrived a little after 6 and it went swimmingly. Each kid picked up a bag from the table. We were all far apart from each other. The adults got their treat over at the bar, also far away from each other. It really was like a normal Halloween. We had about the same amount of kids and adults as in years past and everyone was behaving in a safe manor. Even though it slowed down around 7:15, we stayed out until 8:00. Our other neighbors stopped by our house last and we chatted with them for a little bit. They said that everything in the neighborhood felt safe; a lot people had treat bags instead of loose candy. The kids had a ton of fun and the parents were really happy about that.
We cleaned up the outside and went in to watch and participate in my niece and friend’s son swap candy and eat more cake and dessert. Like we needed any more sugar. Everyone grabbed some leftovers and went home. I have to say, this was one of the best Halloween nights we’ve had in long time. We hope you had a great and safe Halloween too!
Thanks for reading this segment of my “This Damn Virus” story. Catch up on past segments here and come back next Wednesday for the next one! Sign up to receive a weekly reminder email about this blog here.
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