I know Halloween is now far in the past, what with all the Christmas displays up in malls and stores. But for me it feels like just yesterday. That’s probably because I spent November 1-5 in Seattle, WA, for a John Maxwell conference called Exchange. Highlights of that include touring the Boeing plant, visiting Microsoft, and touching a fish during a presentation by the guys from Pike Place Fish Market. Oh, and we ate really well. The one disappointment occurred when a group of us walked from our hotel to the Space Needle, only to arrive and find that it had closed just five minutes before we got there. I can now say I’ve “been” to the Space Needle – and attest that the gift shop was quite scenic.

Anyway, back to Halloween. This was the first year that we didn’t get together with our good friends Barry and Casey. In the past, we always trick-or-treated together in their neighborhood. This year, we had this (ultimately misguided) notion of visiting the houses in our VERY OWN NEIGHBORHOOD. (This is the first time we’ve lived in a neighborhood for a decade.)

We planned for Hannah to trick-or-treat with her friend C, and for me and Abby to visit our subdivision and then drive to another to get more loot. Charlie and LC would stay home to hand out (and munch on) candy.

Both girls wanted to be zombies, so their costumes were just ripped up dirty clothes. Easy enough. And then Charlie did their zombie makeup. He says that at one time a long time ago, he thought of becoming a special-effects makeup artist:

The girls were impressed and happy with their icky scars and pale complexions. They demonstrated their satisfaction by trying to eat their Daddy’s brains:

Unfortunately, trick-or-treating didn’t go quite as well. At dusk, Abby and I ventured out the front door to our neighbors’ houses. One problem: Not a single porch light in the whole subdivision was on. And everyone appeared to be completely gone. Gah. It was a ghost town. Not a single trick-or-treater in sight either. Which meant that the FOUR BIG BAGS of candy I’d bought were being steadily consumed by the two Charlies.

By now Abby was moping and wishing that she had just trick-or-treated with her friend Matt like last year. Fortunately, I’d made a call earlier to a classmate to see if we could visit her neighborhood, and she called me back just before we gave up in ours.

The evening began to look better when we discovered that Abby’s friend K lives in a townhome community. Where there are lots of kids. And everyone expects trick-or-treaters. WIN. We came home with a sackful of loot.

Poor Hannah didn’t fare as well. They got started late and only gathered a handful of candy before it was time for her to come home.

(It was weird to say, “Be home by 9:30.” I hadn’t expected the Curfew Phase to come so early with her. She’s only 12!)

Luckily, the two Charlies hadn’t had enough time to plow through all FOUR bags, so Hannah was able to raid our stash. All went well. And we were actually able to remove the girls’ makeup before bed.

I was all, “So how DO you remove theatre makeup anyway?” Charlie answered, “The usual way. With cold cream.” “COLD CREAM?? Who has COLD CREAM anymore?!” That’s what I thought. What I said was, “I hope that the makeup remover wipes work.” (They did.)

What’s the moral of the story? When you buy four bags of candy, and add in what your kids gather on Halloween night, it’s a very good idea to have a five-day trip planned the next day, so that all that’s left when you get home is a handful of Skittles and Dum-Dum lollipops.