Thoughts of Halloween

Well, it's October third. Do you know what that means? It means I woke up and didn't want to leave my blankets. It means my cardigan isn't warm enough for being inside. It means my wet hair felt crunchy by the time I got to work. I means I'm moving to Florida.

Okay, I'd probably never move to Florida, but this time of year every year, I daydream about warmer places, I look at plane tickets, and I resent my winter coat.

And yet, I still live here. And I am going to keep living here, at least this year. I will most likely suffer through a snowy halloween, or at least the kind where children wear costumes over their snowsuits.

So anyways, enough complaining about the cold. I will embrace it. I will learn to love it. I think.


This time of year, I also start thinking about Halloween. As a child, every year on Halloween, we would turn all of our lights out, lock the doors, and pretend we weren't home every time a Trick-or-Treater came to the door. It was like a game for us. Somehow my parents thought that if we were home and didn't answer the door, our house would get egged or TP'ed or something crazy. We also never decorated, and never, ever, ever Trick-or-Treated. A few times we went to costume parties, so we did dress up, but I think we did that two, maybe three times.

When I was sixteen, I had my first chance to Trick-or-Treat, because I spent Halloween with my friends. Of course, by sixteen, most kids feel they're too old to Trick-or-Treat. So we dressed up, and wandered around, but didn't really get any candy.

Every year after that, I got really excited for Halloween, whether it was to dress up and hand out candy, or to go to a party, or to host a party. I just wanted to dress up! I love dressing up! In past years, I've dressed up as an undead bride, an 80's prom queen, a fairy princess, and Little Red Riding Hood. My brilliant Halloween idea is that M go as Batman, and I be Robin! I think it's great. And crazy cheesy. He hates it. He hates Halloween. He hates holidays. So that's a bummer.

This year, M is going to school over Halloween, and it falls on a weekday, so I'm thinking I won't do anything. Maybe hand out candy. It just won't be the same without him.

But, more importantly, this is my first GF Halloween. This holiday obviously isn't as big a deal as Thanksgiving (10 more days until I have to face that horror), or Christmas, but it's still daunting.

Thankfully, the Celiac Disease Foundation came to my rescue! They posted a lovely list of Gluten-Free candy. Keep in mind, this is an American list. I got all excited to see Smarties listed, but no, those aren't Smarties, those are Rockets. Americans are all confused about candy names. Also, I would suggest checking your Canadian candies too, but this is at least a jumping board. Yay!