I think one of the reasons childhood is so magical is that children have poor long term memories. This means they get to rediscover special holidays over and over again, year after year. M was taken Trick or Treating last year, but she doesn’t remember it. This year I wasn’t planning on taking her because it seemed like too much hassle. Trying to do dinner and bath time for both girls plus a tour of the neighbourhood and sugar could easily make a challenging time worse. After picking M up from after school club I showed her the bucket of sweets and explained about Halloween.
I had only got the sweets 'just in case'. I've always thought it's better to have treats if people knock than to risk getting the front door egged. It's not exactly a hardship if we have to eat all the sweets ourselves, but this meant I hadn't carved a pumpkin or prepared any decorations to put outside encouraging people to knock.
M waited impatiently on the doorstep for visitors, but there were hardly any people going door to door on our road. Those we could see headed to the houses with pumpkins. M ended up running down the street after them shouting "Trickle sweets! Trickle sweets!".
I decided to stop cooking dinner and asked M if she wanted to go out Trick or Treating. There were 2 houses we could see with decorations so we headed to those. That was enough to give M a taste for it. Something clicked and she realised that just by knocking on a door and holding a bucket out people would give her handfuls of sugar. I was foolish to think we would stop after 2 houses.
The road round the corner had lots of the houses decorated and a mass of children knocking at the doors. I managed to persuade M the phrase was "Trick or Treat" (much as I loved “trickle sweets”), but she was often too shy to say it. I was impressed that she mumbled unprompted “thank you”s.
It was fun meeting so many neighbours and there was a great party atmosphere. I've never really gone trick or treating before and my previous neighbours haven't encouraged it. Each year I've bought sweets, but even when I've put a pumpkin outside not many have knocked. I now appear to live near a popular street for Halloween. Next year we are definitely going to make more effort.
I asked M what she thought of Trick or Treating and she said “It was really good, I wish they did it every day. I want to do it again. I like Trick or Treating because you get to have lots of yummy scrumptious sweets.” I kinda wish she hadn’t tried to eat them all, in the dark I didn’t notice as they kept disappearing into her mouth.
With my aching arms I cut the sweet collecting short. I was carrying the baby as I originally planned to only visit 2 houses. I wanted the girls to have dinner and encouraged M to head home to see if anyone else would come to our door. I put our (uncarved and edible) pumpkin on the pavement and stuck a witches hat in the letter box, but we still didn’t get anyone stop by. As M stood by the window ready to pounce with her sweets I attempted to persuade her to eat some dinner, the sugar high had already hit though and she barely touched it.
M was loud and annoying. The sugar had turned my little witch into a monster so I got her in the bath, letting her splash around with her sister and hoping she would go to bed soon. She may have been inspired by Johnson's special edition baby bubble bath featuring cheeky bubble monsters. There was shouting, giggling and too much noise, but she finally burnt herself out earlier than normal.
Phew.
Now I get to eat all the sweets.
Disclosure: The girls had a bath in Johnson's Bubble Bath and Wash this evening which is gentle enough for both of them. I was sent a bottle and character cards about their Bubble Monsters. The Bubble Monsters were not given any sugary snacks either in or out of the water.
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