Basque to the Future: Halloween School Parade and Trick-or-Treating

Halloween at last! Simon has been talking about being a baseball player forever. Then when it was crunch time and he had to choose a costume he threw us a curve ball and decided to be a fire chief. He seemed really happy with the decision, so we went with it. In not too long baseball man will be a reality anyway!

He went to school dressed up on Friday. They had planned a Halloween parade around the block for the PreK-5th grade, but the weather did not cooperate. Because it was snowing/sleeting in the morning they had the parade down the school hall. Not nearly as long or exciting as walking outside, but definitely much warmer and easier on everyone (especially people watching!) Jessie, Lillian, Alan and I all went to watch the parade and then went home to get ourselves together to start trick or treating! The stores on Lincoln did trick or treating from 3-6 and we started right at 3. There was crazy wind and a wintery mix of sleet, rain, and snow, but it was the first Halloween that Simon was into it so Alan and I were game (poor Lillian didn't have a choice, and Jessie manned the door back in the warm house). We finished with Lincoln around 4 and were ready to start trick or treating on our block be there wasn't really anyone answering the doors so we went home ourselves, planning one of us to go back out with Simon after dinner while Lillian was in bed.

Around 5:30 when we told Simon we could go out again, he looked at the rain and wind-whipped trees and asked me, "Mom, who gets this candy if no trick or treaters come?" referring to the candy in a bucket by the door ready to hand out. I told him we kept it. Then he decided he didn't need to go out again. He'd just eat that candy tomorrow. Too smart for his own good!! He made himself in charge of the door instead. He got a chair and sat by the bucket of candy with the door open, anxiously waiting. He had a whole plan worked out: "Dad, when they come to the door I will put some candy in their bags for them, like this."
"But Simon, sometimes people like to look and choose for themselves"
"Hmm ok... they can look in our bucket and say oh I want that one! And then I'll pick it up and give it to them. And if they ask for something else then I'll give that to them"
"Don't you think that will be too slow if lots of kids come at once?"
"No no, I'll do it really fast!"
Sadly, no other trick or treaters came before it was bedtime... he was really disappointed about that.

On Saturday, after lunch, we let him eat all the candy he wanted out of the bucket he trick or treated (from Lincoln, not our leftovers). It was then that I realized, he has never really had any mass market candy. He ate his first Snickers, first Kit Kat, first Twix (didn't care for that one, just ate chocolate off the outside), first Milky Way, had his first lollypop and ate his first Laffy Taffy, etc. He opened every sucking candy, took one suck and spat them out. When asked, whatever he was currently eating was his favorite so long as it wasn't a hard candy. Asked after the fact they *all* were his favorite. He made serious inroads, but since he could only eat candy at the table he got bored after a while (about half way through the stash and maybe 30 minutes in) and needed to go play. Candy was taken away at that point and no mention has been made since! :)