Merry Mayhem

Halloween is the 31st of October and has been traditionally since the dawn of time. Ok. Not really but since the dawn of MY time. This year it fell on a Sunday. However, for some reason the powers that be (i.e. the city I live in) decided that Sunday the 31st was a bad day to go trick or treating and celebrate the awesomeness that is Halloween. No, instead it was bumped up a day early to Saturday the 30th and to top it off it was dictated to us that trick or treating was only allowed between 6 and 8 that evening.

My complaints about this are simple.

First off, I don't think any government city, state, federal, whatever should have ANY hand on how people celebrate a holiday. I bet if they started fucking with Christmas or Easter people would loose their damn minds. Secondly, the time frame in which we were told to trick or treat is ridiculous as well. 6 to 8?!?! It isn't even dark yet at 6. It was after 7 before the sun started to go down. Considering the nature of the holiday, darkness is an important aspect of it since dating back to the Celts bonfires were used to honor the end of summer and beginning of the harvest season.

Part of me cannot help but wonder what hand the local churches had in this. The majority of the churches around here still held their "Treat and then Trick" festivals on the most "EVIL" day of Halloween. They opened them to the public with their jumpies and flat screen TV raffles and offerings of candy and such but it was all a ploy to get you there for the ultimate trick of accepting Jesus as your lord and savior. My kids wanted to go in their costumes. Even though I mostly disagree with the Christian faith, I do have respect for it and I thought it was slightly inappropriate to bring my son and daughter decked out in his Killer Clown from Outerspace costume and her Devil Diva attire. Besides we would have become a target for prayer and the last thing I want to do in a place like that is draw attention to myself or my kids. Needless to say, we played Rockband on Sunday instead.

On Thursday night, the kids and I stuffed goodie bags. The kids choose the candy and trinkets they wanted to put in each one and I was head of the twist tie department.

On Saturday, we baked cookies. I mixed the dough and got it the right consistency. Then I became the overseer of the cookie cutting. We had cutters in the shape of a pumpkin, a witch's head, a half moon, a ghost, a cat, and a bat. I mixed some food coloring and frosting to come up with orange icing. I slathered icing on the cookies after they were all baked and cooled. Then the kids sprinkled the hell out of them.

Afterwards, I readied the children in their costumes and make-up. and then proceeded to doll myself up as well. We spent awhile snapping pictures of each other. Then, I clicked on the porch light (even though it was still daylight outside) and put the plastic cauldron full of goodie bags in front the door with a note taped to it basically saying "Don't be a greedy-ass!" Later we began our trek around the neighborhood in search of treats.

While out and about we came across a white pit bull on the loose. I say "on the loose" but it really was just hanging out in front of what I believe to be its house. It just stood their barking at us...not viciously. It was the sort of bark that said, "Hey! I'm here and I'm watching you. Stay out of my yard or you'll make me angry. You won't like me when I'm angry. By the way, I like bacon." It was interesting.

Well, since the city went and broke all the "rules" of Halloween, the residence didn't think they needed to follow them either. How hard is it to turn your freaking porch light off ONE night a year? I know sometimes people run out of candy and forget. Those people are usually apologetic when they answer their door. BUT I hate assholes that not only waste my kids' time but smugly tell them that they don't participate in Halloween with their nose in the air like they are somehow better than us.

Children get all decked out and they only have two hours to rack in as much candy as they can. FYI (people that choose not participate): Don't leave your porch light on only to answer the door and tell my kids that you don't celebrate Halloween. Nobody fucking cares!!  JEEZ!

The asshole award of the night goes to the jerk off that not only left their light on but went the extra mile to write a detailed note about how they don't celebrate Halloween and taped that bad boy to their door. What a creep! Again, turn your light off, JERK! Your electric bill will thank you. Those people are lucky I didn't have a carton of eggs or a roll of toilet paper. That is one mofo that would seriously DESERVE a good TPing. You know I'm right too.

A neighbor down the street called me on Saturday night and asked if I wanted bring the kids and go to her church for their festival. I hate being invited to church. I loathe it. I have absolutely no interest what so ever in going to church...ANY church for ANYTHING. In my opinion churches themselves are useless buildings. When someone invites me to church, I find it easiest to just tell them that I am an atheist. I'm not really an atheist; I consider myself to be more of an agnostic. I'll spare you the details.
Anyway...back to this neighbor...

I declined her invitation and told her I was an atheist. Almost immediately it were as if I had the bubonic plaque. It felt as if she could not get off the phone with me fast enough. I thought, "Great! Now my kids will be prohibited from playing with her children." The next day, she sent me a text message apologizing if she offended me. I was honestly impressed. I have never had anyone apologize after inviting me to church or even a church function. It felt good to know that even though we are both on basically opposite sides of the belief spectrum, she is still respectful of my beliefs. It is an unusual occurrence but it made me respect her more.

Well, that about sums up Halloween 2010. What did you do? Did you get your creep show on? Did you watch any kick ass horror movies? Tell me about it because, let's face it, I'm nosey.