That Time David Saved Halloween

Shira and I thought we had Halloween under control for our 7 year old. We had a costume he loved, the Black Ninja, and was comfortable to wear (minus the silly scarf covering the mouth - yeah, not practical). I used my experience growing up in frigid Rochester, NY to make sure he was wearing plenty of layers *under* his costume so he wouldn't have to cover it up with a bulky jacket.

We used Hurricane Sandy as the perfect excuse to do pumpkin carving, and along with my Dad's (or was it David's?) and Maryn's handy work, we had 4 most excellent pumpkins:

(A few key points to brag about: our 7 year old colored in the perfect mustache on my pumpkin, and it was his idea to add the bow tie to his. Maryn's pumpkin, is an amazing match for Elmo, which she did freehand. My Dad's pumpkin was expertly executed from a pattern)

David insisted that I pick up an absurd amount of candy from Cost Co so we would be ready for any number of kids, and could be especially generous with them.

All that was left do was go out and do the Trick-or-Treating.

My assumption was that at 6pm (it was just about dark), David, our 7 year old and I would hit our neighborhood and that would be that. After all, growing up, our neighborhood was a hotbed of Halloween activity, with hundreds of kids running from house to house. Surely that's how all neighborhoods are, right?

Wrong. As we started off, we quickly found that there just weren't that many houses that looked alive and interested in accepting Trick-or-Treaters. Sure, we were collecting some candy, but the mood was hardly the rambunctious one that David and I recall growing up. In fact, given the number of dark houses and lack of fellow Trick-or-Treaters, it was actually kinda creepy strolling through the neighborhood.

David had a solution, though. We just needed to jump in the the car, find a hopping neighborhood and tackle that one. I just couldn't see that working. Luckily, I ignored my instincts, and we made our way back to the house and into the car.

We set off for a somewhat random'ish neighborhood in South Arlington, and before we knew it, we found a street that had some life. There two houses that had extensive decorations, and a Dad along with his kids making the rounds. What the heck, we thought, let's give it a try.

After about 15 minutes, the street was crawling with kids, and that Halloween excitement was back! David's suggestion turned out to be just what we needed.

When we returned, Shira was in charge of sorting and accounting for candy. It's a difficult job, but someone has to do it.

All in all, we had a most successful night. And best of all, we know the neighborhood to start in next year.

Here's the Black Ninja himself, getting his Trick-r-Treat on...