Hopping on Board and Halloween

Ok...so I learned yesterday that my husband wanted to start a few blogs. As you may have already read, we have talked about this before but compared to our blogging friends it seems that our life may not include many blog-worthy moments. We don't have any cute children stories/pictures, exciting vacations, pregnancy-related changes, or hurricane fiascoes (like Mandy) to talk about. However, we will give this a try and create a presence in the online world apart from our facebook pages.

Sitting here at my desk, avoiding grading papers, I began to think about Halloween. When I was a kid I loved Halloween. Scary stories fascinated me. I loved the imaginary world of ghosts and creepy dead things lurking in the graveyards. My favorite books were the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Since my mom was an elementary librarian, I had access to those books almost any time I wanted to read them. I think I scared Jack this morning when I revealed to him that I used to decorate my room with skeletons that I had cut out of paper and other frightening decorations that would have made me disturbed had my child been decorating her room that way. I think my mom knew I just had an active imagination. Anyway, it's interesting the way Halloween changes as you get older. Dressing up was a highlight of my childhood (even when it was too cold to wear the costume without a jacket, which always ruined the look of it). In college, inner-city children would come trick-or-treat at our dorm rooms. One year I bought those fangs you can glue to your teeth so you look like a vampire. Otherwise I dressed normally, so when the kids came to our door and I smiled at them they would scream and run away. It was fun. Last year we had a trunk-or-treat event at church and I dressed up like a tree (don't ask me why). Then I dusted off my old balloon animal skills and made swords, hats, flowers, and dogs for the children. I don't decorate my house for Halloween like I used to decorate my room. But thinking about that does make me wonder what our own children might do when they encounter Halloween.