Halloween

My mom has always had a love of Halloween. Beginning October 1st, her house is a mix of spiders, bats, coffins, skulls and rats. All things gross and creepy. To her liking. Her entire street is this way. It is seriously a contest to see who has the most Halloween decorations. My moms front yard has a "Gateway to Hell" blow up, a coffin, a graveyard etc. Every year for as long as I can remember, my family had a scary front yard for trick-or-treaters. My dad would dress up as a mummy, my mom as a zombie, my sister had the best witch costume this side of the Mississippi and would stir up a cauldron of smokey witches brew (homemade rootbeer with dry ice). My other sister took her turn as Frankenstein, I was his wife. My brother was a great wearwolf. There is a constant stream of creepy noises coming from her cd player.

When I moved out, I started to celebrate Halloween differently. I was more a cutesy, autumn decor-type girl. The most morbid thing I had was a candleabra shaped like a hand. You lit the finger tips and the wax dripped red like blood. Underneath was a skeleton of a hand. I became nauseous the first time that I lit it and promptly gave it to my mom. Back to just the cute wood pumpkins and the silly-faced ghosts and lots of scarecrows everywhere.

Then I had children.

Things changed quick. I have decided that things skip generations in my family. My children have a love of all things scary. I take T to Wally-Word and we have to spend at least ten minutes looking at all of the "scawees". M loves the disgusting things. At Sunday dinner she was fascinated with a squeezy skull that my mom had bought. You squeezed it and the eyes popped out. Not only did they pop out, they seeped "blood" and then maggots fell out of the orphis. Disgusting. She also took part in placing rubber rats in our drinking glasses (which were appropriately skeletal hands holding goblets...can you say obsession!) My kids get the biggest kick out of my mom's latest purchase, a punch bowl fountain where the fountain part is a skull. She makes red punch and adds almost a whole bottle of food coloring to get that thick red color. When she plugs in the fountain, the eyes of the skull weep red.

T's new favorite movie is "The Nightmare Before Christmas". We have watched it at least two times a day for the past week. Lest you think I am a rotten mother who lets the television raise her child, she only goes into the room to watch it when the songs are on. She loves dancing "scawee" to the songs. She also appropriately calls it "Scawee Cwistmas".

So now my life has changed, as have my views on Halloween. For the very first time I put cobwebs in my front room. I have a witches menu on my kitchen counter complete with jars of lizard legs, toe of frog and eye of newt. I have big metal spider webs to put on my front porch. I am in the process of making tombstones for my front yard.

They say having children changes you. In my case it took me back to my roots.

Happy Halloween everyone!