Very much spoooooooky-like-ness-ing

And as usual, Halloween was once again THE premier holiday for the Irwin household. The way we do Halloween makes most people's Christmas celebration and decoration efforts look pretty anemic, if I do say so myself.

It is very much a whole-family holiday. Lloyd and the kids decorate the hell out of the yard in advance, and top it off as it's getting dark that night. (light-up ICE CUBES, anyone?! Yes, we still have a good number that worked, and this is year seven!!!).

Giant graveyard on the lawn, check; anything that can be draped in black fabric or covered in glow sticks, IS, check; spooks created from cheesecloth, discarded net curtains, check. Boys with voice-changers, tiny hidden mp3 player speakers, faceless masks and red glowing eyes hiding in the bushes with bags full of cans full of pennies...check, check check!!!

I had some great half-formed ideas for giant spiders out of the bottom ring of a papasan chair and how to best use my wheelchair, but alas they were too late for this year.

So, we had to settle for the two-

or three- hundred other things we did....

Anna was feeling pretty bummed over the whole thought of being too old to go trick or treating, and a the last weeks and days counted down to the holiday, I caved. First I said to invite her two best friends over, just to run around outside or whatever. Then I gave in on the trick or treating too. What the fuck, she's only young once, right? Young enough to still go, but also old enough that I was able to let her and Christa go out for a while on their own.

Let me clarify though: We checked the Megan's law site. She was given a precise set of streets she was allowed to be on and no further. They were nicely visible thanks to many glowsticks (& Christa's shiny white patent knee-high platform go-go boots!) There was a curfew, they knew not to consider eating a single thing they collected AND I had her on walkie-talkie the whole time.

Freedom on a very short leash. ;->

But, because of all those things and knowing our housing tract-neighborhood, I was able to feel very, very comfortable letting her have her freedom, and the two girls had an absolute blast-plus. Maybe next year she won't want to do it again, but I've alre

ady decided to let her. Like I said, she's only going to be this age once.

The boys, once they aged out of the door-to-door thing, made up their own routine for the holiday. They both have big black shroud kind of things with those hood masks that make you look like you're faceless. Under that, at least one of them had glowing red eyes, which look eerie as all hell.

They take turns sitting in a black draped chair, with black draping covering their feet and such, and play statue, candy bucket between the feet. For younger kids (the ones brave enough to come all the way up the walk!!), they just give out the candy. For the tiny ones with pink wings, I often have to intervene and bring the candy down to the sidewalk, that's HOW good they are!!

While one is in the chair, the other is somewhere in the bushes with a bag full of soda cans, with a handful of pennies thrown in for better noisemaking.

Older kids, see, are fair game...... Muhahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!
You should hear the screams!! Oh, it is glorious! Teenage girls are the best prey - of course. They do such a great job that our house is now widely known in Gridley as THAT HOUSE - "you know, that one house with the guys who don't move?!"

I was across the street talking to Jamie at one point and when I looked back across at our house, we had a LINE. A LINE!! All the way down the walkway to the driveway, with screams emanating from the porch. I wanted a camera so badly right then.

As for me, I decided to really go for it myself, costume-wise. As I told Jamie, not to be morbid, but, I have no idea how many Halloweens I have to feel up and perky enough to do it, so I didn't want to miss it. My costume was very deceptively simple, but I got masses of compliments!

I was a Christmas tree!!

The idea was stolen from a long-ago coworker, but the execution was all mine, with prop styling by the Dollar Tree store. My main tree-part was a giantly fluffy green square dance petticoat with ornaments, battery powered LED lights, ornaments, etc. Other than fixing the lights in place and putting my "hat" ( garland wreath with a giant gold star) together, the rest was basically draping things artistically.

I was actually surprised at how much attention I got. Then again, I was the only brightly lit neon green Christmas tree running around in the dark.

I got tons of compliments from kids and adults both, but I also had one rather clueless family where the father wanted me to *dance* for him - what the fuck?! Do people just randomly ask other adults to dance on the sidewalk for them on Halloween in his world?! His horrid children kept sticking out bare hands at me saying "trick or treat!" over and over and then trying to remove and take my ornaments.

I'm going to be generous and assume that this was their first Halloween since sneaking across the border...... Ok, that was terrible of me but I was getting seriously grossed out by these people TOUCHING ME!! Yuck.

I should have thrown pumpkin guts at them.

But, aside from being groped by one nasty family, the rest of the night was a complete blast. All the kids were exhausted from the hard work hiding, scaring and walking, and we were exhausted from supervising the general chaos.

The boys are already plotting next year.......