This is what my oldest son yelled at me one year.

I can’t quite remember how old my kids were when my oldest son yelled “You ruin Halloween–and that’s why nobody comes here!”

Halloween is right up there with Christmas and Birthdays at my house. Actually, Halloween probably ranked highest. My oldest kiddo is creative and usually made his own costume. One year he was Toad from Mario Kart. Another year he was Robin Hood (slightly peeved that I wouldn’t get him a real bow and arrow). And he was the one who wanted the house to be “really, really spooky”.

Now, I don’t love Halloween as much as the rest of my town does. Portsmouth does Halloween BIG!. Houses decorated with skeletons, creepy music, spider webs, zombies and ghosts. I’ll admit it, my decorations were lame: a few spider webs, a few bats and a sparkly door sign that says “BOO”.

Trick-or-treat is always on October 30th from 5-8 pm because on the 31st Portsmouth puts on a killer parade, complete with a zombie flash mob dancing to Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

The year that my kiddo accused me of ruining Halloween, I hadn’t bought bags and bags of candy. I instead filled my goodie bowl with plastic spider rings, little bottles of bubbles, spooky tattoos, Halloween themed pencils and glow-in-the-dark fake vampire teeth. Teenagers loved the vampire teeth and tattoos and several moms of toddlers thanked me for the non-candy options.

Did I “ruin” Halloween? I’ll let you judge for yourself. But I’d like to point out that the goodie bowl was empty at the end of the night and nobody TP’d our trees 😉

Snack Idea:

Apple Pie Smoothie (from Eating Well)

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