Happy Halloween!

Today is October 31, 2007; Halloween day. When you're a kid, this is probably one of the greatest days of the year, next to the last day before Christmas Vacation and Summer Vacation, of course. Halloween was one of those days you looked forward to all year long. You might've even had the idea for your costume picked out months in advance. Lots of planning goes into creating a costume because you want it to be the absolute best and most original. I can recall a few costumes that I had; a firefighter, a ghost, a soldier, a pirate, a bum and probably others that I can't remember. The firefighting costume was probably my favorite because it included a real fire hose, complete with a real nozzle and hose, that my dad took from work. I had the whole outfit down to a tee and it was fun showing off in it.

But as I'm sure you all know, the older you get, the less interested you become in the holiday, particularly dressing up in a costume. The fifth grade was the last year I took it seriously. A year later, I decided enough was enough and that I did not want to get dressed up at all. I went to school without a costume and I know I wasn't the only one to be without. A number of my friends also did not dress up. You know how it goes, we were too cool to be dressed up for Halloween and we weren't kids anymore. And I wasn't even going to go trick or treating that night, but I was more or less dragged into going by my sister's boyfriend at the time. He and my sister took me to a few houses around the neighborhood and I did get into the holiday spirit while trick or treating. All in all, I had a fun time that night, but that ended up being the last time I went trick or treating.

I don't believe I dressed up in costume for Halloween again until I was in college. Halloween just happened to fall on a weekend and while I was in college for a couple of years, I worked Fridays and Saturdays at a grocery store about 20 miles from home. All of the employees were encouraged to dress up for Halloween and not even considering that I would have to stand behind a cash register the whole shift, I dressed up as a construction worker, complete with a hard hat, tool belt, work clothes, and tools. At least I wasn't the only one to dress up and I had a fun time doing it. It made for an interesting night, that is for sure.

So here we are upon another Halloween and mine won't exactly be very exciting. In a few hours I plan to carve a pumpkin - it's a large one, so it's going to take me awhile. Then after that, I plan to sit by the TV, watching a marathon of the "Halloween" movies on AMC - a recent tradition of mine. After awhile, we'll begin to hear knocking on our front door which signals that start of trick or treating! We don't get as many trick or treaters to our house anymore. At one time, we had anywhere from 50-60 kids at our door on Halloween. Lately, we've been lucky to get 25! Not a lot of kids in the neighborhood anymore. But, it'll be nice to hear the kids yelling "trick or treat" as they go house by house looking for candy.

Here's hoping you have a wonderful Halloween, whether you'll be dressing up and going to a Halloween party, giving out candy to trick or treaters, watching horror movies on the TV, or carving a Halloween pumpkin; be sure to make the most of your day! And even though you may be grown up and too old to enjoy the holiday anymore, at least think back to those times when you were a kid enjoying the day. I know that's what I'll be doing.