Halloween is Over

Well Halloween came and went pretty quickly around here. We have a few empty houses in the neighborhood, and some neighbors just weren't home. As usual, I stayed home to give out candy while Blythe and the kids went trick-or-treating. I would estimate we had fewer than 50 kids come all night, which is not many for our neighborhood. We have lots of young families, and plenty of houses in easy walking distance, so we used to get closer to 100 kids.

Halloween seems to be changing. There are more parties and less trick-or-treating. When I realized that, I at first expected to be bummed about the change. But I realized that the door to door begging is really odd anyway. The costumes, and of course the candy, still show up so it's not like the whole tradition is disappearing.

We did have a woman who I've never seen before show up at the door with a stroller containing a sound asleep baby. After she knocked and I opened the door, she held out a plastic pumpkin bucket without a word. I hope I didn't make too much noise when I dropped the candy in the bucket. No, I wasn't worried about waking the baby. She was on her cell phone. I think everything was OK, though. After I dropped the candy in the bucket she laughed into the phone and turned away without even looking at me. Whew, that was close.