Happy New Year!!!

or Happy Halloween as some call it.

Halloween was much more relaxed this year as we did not do our massive haunted house. This was a bitter sweet decision. With Halloween falling on Tuesday it would require too much missed work for us and our fellow volunteers to do the haunt justice. Tim made an executive decision and decided to nix it. We still had people show up last night expecting it, but with nothing set up in the yard and cars parked in the driveway it was pretty evident that it was not happening.

We had close to 100 Trick or Treaters, with most in costume. I really dislike the teenagers who make no attempt. They get 1 small piece whereas the others in costume get a couple and a small toy. We hand out small stuffed toys to the really young children, who shouldn't be eating a ton of chocolate anyway. We had lots of superheros (Batman, Spiderman, Ice Princess?), pirates, princesses, soldiers, fairies, witches, devils, mermaids, the ocassional classic ghoul, ghost and zombie. It was pretty cold last night so many kids were wearing their jackets and a mask.

Tim removed the screen door and curtained off the entrance. He then ran a fogger into the space and lit it with red lights. When the doorbell rang we shot the space full of fog and opened the door. The kids were greeted with a figure standing in a glowing red mist... pretty effective. I scared a number of kids back to the end of the sidewalk a couple of times. Especially since I was wearing this.

I made this costume almost 15 years ago and it still fits. It is the worst constructed costume that I have ever made (I think I used lining fabric... just say NO!). It has been retired (ripped to shreads and stuffed in the garbage) and I'll make another one, with proper construction and fabric.

This was especially entertaining since we were watching the Addams Family (TV) season 1 DVD that I bought Tim for his birthday.

Almost all the groups asked about the haunted maze and expressed that they were sad that we were not doing it this year cause they really enjoyed it. That was very gratifying.

Because we did not do the maze we kept the decorating to a minimum, we didn't even carve pumpkins, which was very sad. I did set up my village.

Hope everyone had a happy and safe holiday!