The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Ask my daughters and they'll tell tales of Halloween when they were young.  One year there was a tornado warning issued as we were trick-or-treating.  Another was a total washout, thanks to rain and flooding, but we tried anyway--I'm still amazed that we weren't washed away.  Their costumes were never store-bought.  I made them all, sometimes from whatever was available.  That's the fun way.

Although there are a lot of years between my daughters' Halloweens and mine, many of my memories are just as clear and strong as theirs are.  My next door neighbors included 3 children, all older than me and all accustomed to keeping an eye on me.  They were more siblings to me than neighbors, and every Halloween for years and years, they took me trick-or-treating.


One of the most memorable times was when I was quite small.  It was late.  We finished most of our block and beyond and were headed home.  While we waited on the corner to cross the street to my house, two cars collided in front of us.  It was loud, it was scary, and I remember screaming, bringing most of the neighborhood outside.  A bit traumatic for a three-year-old.  (I'm 2nd from the left in the clown costume.  Oldest of the neighbors is the tall, pioneer in the back.)

Then there was the Halloween of the Witch.   My mother made my costume that year, as she nearly always did, and for some strange reason I chose to be a pilgrim.  With the dark grey dress and white apron, collar and hat, I also wore a wig--yellow hair, two braids, much like a Dutch girl.  By that time we'd moved on to tricking and treating in the surrounding blocks. We neighborhood kids spent a lot of time riding our bikes on the block north of us, around the "circle drive" where the street dead-ended after they built the big highway.  Except on Halloween this particular year, there was a witch sneaking around the side of one of the houses near there, cackling at us and scaring me to the point of screaming and running for home, as fast as I could.  By the time I arrived, I was crying and could barely explain to my dad about the scary witch.  The first thing he did was to ask where my hat and wig were.  In my haste to get away from the witch, I'd lost them.  Too scared to face the witch again, I begged my dad to go with me to find my missing costume pieces.  He did, but by the time we arrived near the witch's house, she was gone.  We retrieved my hat and wig and returned home.  But I'll never forget how scared I was that night.  The poor neighbor who'd dressed as the witch never did it again.

By the time I hit junior high and high school, my family had moved to a small town, where Halloween had become famous for trouble.  It didn't take long for the new grocery store owners to realize they needed to hide the cartons of eggs early in the day.  My senior year, I rode with my best friends as we drove around town, and for the rest of the winter, that car smelled of rotten eggs whenever the heater was turned on.  We never threw a single egg.  Bales of hay were "borrowed" from neighboring farms and dumped in the middle of the main street, making driving...interesting.  Smashed pumpkins (not the band) were often stolen and joined the hay bales in the street.  There were a few times when those bales were set on fire.  In years past, outhouses were tipped over.  By the time I was in high school, it became so bad that the sheriff deputies--some on horseback--came to town to try to keep the craziness within bounds. There were a couple of years that I participated as a crazy by riding in the back of a pickup truck and holding on for dear life.  Then there was the five feet deep hole ("Devil's Hole") I fell into while running in the dark...

Is it any wonder that I love Halloween?  And apparently my daughters do, too, because they still enjoy putting together and wearing costumes as they take their own families trick-or-treating.  Me?  I just sit back and enjoy my favorite holiday in peace and quiet, along with an appropriate movie or two.

Hope you and yours have a wonderful and non-scary Happy Halloween!!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like....? (rant warning)

Is it October and nearing Halloween?  Or is it after Thanksgiving with Christmas less than a month away?  I ask because, as others have noticed and mentioned on other social media, Christmas items are appearing a little earlier in stores each year.  This year as the Halloween decorations were beginning to adorn stores (a week or two after the huge bags of Halloween candy was appearing on store shelves) and well before the back-to-school items disappeared, Christmas decorations were also sneaking their way into stores.

While I understand that some people enjoy shopping early for Christmas to avoid the hassle of crowds and items being unavailable, I don't understand the  necessity of buying decorations--both outdoor and indoor--too early, such as weeks and weeks prior to Thanksgiving.  Is it because they see things they want and are afraid they'll be gone in a week or two?  Because if it is, they're missing 2 things:  A) If you can't find something closer to Christmas, you weren't supposed to have it in the first place, and B) What about sales?

While I enjoy a pretty tree and tinsel and flickering lights framing roofs and houses, I'd rather save the Christmas decorations for the month of December. Mid-December would suit me fine.  Why?

• Putting up a tree of any size means moving things.  Big things.  Like furniture. 
• Children (the small variety) and pets tend to enjoy UNdecorating more than I ever enjoyed decorating. Not to mention breakage and danger.
• I can only take so much HO HO HO in one year, and its a cinch it'll be over come Dec. 26, so that means shaving off at the beginning.
• No matter what the size of tree, it always blocks my view of the TV...although I don't get a chance to watch a whole lot of shows.
• Taking down the tree is a lot less fun that putting it up was.

My family may tell you that when it comes to Christmas, I lean more toward Scrooge than Tiny Tim.  Maybe it's because I've been around longer and accept reality, which no longer includes racking up a credit card bill that will take most of a year to pay off.  Or maybe it's because, to me, Christmas is a matter of heart, not blinking lights and tinsel.  I'd rather see kindness and love than Santa with reindeer on the rooftop, lit up like the landing strip at the airport.  Merchants, however, don't see it that way, as their eyes light up with dollar signs each time I buy just one more Christmasy thing.  Instead of thinking $$$  (how much we'll need and how much the stores will make), let's fill our hearts with peace and joy by holding off just a little longer and letting anticipation grow, instead of ho hum boredom.

Happy, Merry Hallowmas!

A Woofing Good Time

Woofstock is the largest fundraising event for the Kansas Humane Society. KHS is funded entirely by private donations and fees for service and receives no funding from government entities, the United Way or the Humane Society of the United States. The proceeds from Woofstock help KHS provide care and services for nearly 18,000 pets this year.
We don't own a dog, but we have in the past and there's always a possibility we might in the future. Click on the link below for a slideshow of photos I took at Woofstock.
Woofstock 2011

Just over two weeks ago, KHS waived the adoption fee for cats and kittens.  We have two cats, one which we adopted from KHS several years ago, but it was too tempting not to go up to the KHS shelter for a third.  The crowd of people wanting to adopt a kitten was overwhelming, and my youngest daughter and I stood, sat, and wandered the facility for several hours.  We'd been warned when we came in that because our number was so high, there was a possibility that there wouldn't be any adoptables even before our number was called.
As it turned out, there was one cat left at the end of the numbers called.  The cat wasn't even there, but was in foster care, and there was a poster of him hanging on the wall.  We'd seen the cat on the KHS website and had liked him, so I spoke up and said we'd take him.  We're glad we did.
Meet Toby...

Thank you, KHS, for Toby and for a wonderful time at Woofstock!!!