I’ve been feeling like Life has been speeding past without me properly recording any of it, especially since I stopped writing monthly Dear Connor missives. So, as an attempt to catch up on my public journaling, I give you Connor’s 1st real Halloween!
Our original plan had been for Daddy to take off of work on Friday and the three of us drive over to Harper’s house to hand out candy. Alas, even though Harper lives but a few minutes’ drive away, it’s technically another city, with Trick-or-Treat on Thursday instead.
So the revised plan involved me driving Connor to Harper’s house to give out candy on Thursday, then us trick-or-treating on Friday around our neighborhood. No problem.
Until Thursday turned stupid.
My 3:30pm eye exam took well over an hour and a half, so I had to leave in the middle of ordering my new glasses to pick up Connor, whose daycare closes at 5:30pm. I got there exactly at 5:30, avoiding the exorbitant per-minute late-pickup charge. Aaron had to leave for work before we got home — oh, and did I mention I was driving the “other” car that day, since Aaron had a lengthy errand to run while I was at work?
I tried to de-stress myself on the way home from daycare, but we still had to get some food into us and get Connor’s costume on — and trick-or-treating started at 6pm. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if we didn’t make it there exactly at six, though, and I reminded myself that Connor was going to have fun no matter whether I was stressed out or not, being the excited little kid that he is.
We got to Harper’s house just before her Mom had to leave for work. So, it was me and Connor and Harper and her Dad. There was candy, and marshmallows, and candles, and a fire pit, and fun was had by all.
Connor actually informed me when it was time to go home, and walked to the car without looking back (and almost without even saying goodbye). He and I got home about an hour after we would normally have started the bath-and-bed routine, but things went relatively smoothly, despite him being tired out of his little mind.
The next day, Friday, was actual Halloween for real. The weather was cold and drizzly, unlike the beautiful evening we’d had the day before. Also, not only do we live in a weird spot between cities, but our neighborhood is mainly either retirees or families with older children — imagine lots of “Congratulations [School Here] Graduate” yard signs in the springtime — so we didn’t have a lot of trick-or-treat options. That was OK, though; Connor’s only three. He doesn’t need that much candy, anyway, and the experience of walking with us and saying, “Trick or Treat!” a few times would be excitement enough for him.
We got Connor all done up in his Flash costume again — minus the mask, which he told us he didn’t want to wear this time — then put a hoodie on him, got our jackets and our umbrellas, and were on our way.
We chose a street with a cul-de-sac at the end, and started walking through the drizzle, Aaron and I with our umbrellas not quite managing to shield Connor from the rain, and Connor trying his hardest to splash in or jump over every puddle.
Finally, we reached the end of the cul-de-sac and saw one house with their porch lights on. We were seriously doubtful that anyone was home, but we walked up and Aaron rang the doorbell (since it was too tall for Connor to reach).
After a long pause, a teenage boy opened the door.
“TRICK OR TREAT!”
We’d found the one house that accidentally left their porch lights on.
Luckily, the Mom was nice and delved into their own candy stash for Connor, explaining that they’d gone to a friend’s house to do trick-or-treating the night before. Connor, of course, was oblivious, and only knew that someone had just put candy in his pumpkin bucket like they were supposed to.
There was one other house along the road with their lights on, so we approached that one, too. Connor rang the doorbell, and shouted, “TRICK OR TREAT!” when a nice grandfatherly Jewish man in a blue yarmulke opened the door. The man explained that the “treater” would be there in a minute — she was presumably in the kitchen, opening the bags of candy that hadn’t needed to be opened yet that evening — and that he was the “trick,” which made me chuckle. Jewish grandma came out shortly thereafter, and Connor asked her to put the candy in his bucket, just in case she’d forgotten how this Halloween thing works. We thanked them profusely before we went on our way.
(They didn’t seem upset to be bothered at the beginning of their Sabbath — the sun was just going down by the time we got to their house — but I kind of wished I knew a proper Sabbath greeting or something.)
It occurred to me then that we didn’t take any pictures before we left the house, so I got us all together in the driveway for a family selfie.
It actually wasn’t late at all when we got home. We only hit the two houses, and I think that’s probably all there was to hit, even if we’d tried walking along the other streets where trick-or-treating was technically happening that night. We got our wet shoes and jackets off, ate some Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups from Connor’s candy haul and some Rice Krispies treats that I’d brought home from work, and got Connor up to bed at a reasonable time.
This seems like an appropriate haul for a three-year-old on his first Halloween.
For next year, we know that we shouldn’t bother with our immediate neighborhood, and instead we should either let Connor go trick-or-treat with Harper or hit up a different neighborhood that’s still walking distance from our house. Or just do something local like the Halloween Parade at the mall or the festivities at the zoo or a local trunk-or-treat, and forgo the entire door-to-door bit.
Although if that nice Jewish couple has their lights on every year, I’d hate to let them down…