Halloween 2006

We decided to make a good effort for Halloween this year. Luke has been really looking forward to it. He remembers going round in his buggy last year, collecting a bucket full of sweets from strangers. And he's been waiting all year to do it again. He even used the same bucket.
Yesterday we made tissue ghosts (idea from Deb's Blog) and hung them in our living room window. (You can see a monster on the other side of the window if you look carefully!) They look really cute and were so easy to make that even Luke managed to make four of them.

Today we took a trip down to B&Q to buy paint testers, but when we got home we had some time to make some jack-o-lanterns from pumpkins. I'd already got 4 large pumpkins but Luke decided that he should have a little pumpkin, cos he's the littlest, and so he 'purchased' one in Sainsbury's. It was some work hollowing them all out for carving, and we'll be eating pumpkin soup for weeks to come. But we all spent a fun hour making them together, and they looked pretty impressive on our door step this evening.









(Don't forget you can click on the photos to see the bigger clearer images)

I thought Luke was going to bust a gut having to wait till it was dark to go trick-or-treating. The moon decided to come out before it was dark, which confused the poor wee man further. He decided that the moon couldn't wait for Halloween either so it had come out early! How cute. When Daddy got home from work at 6pm we all got dressed up (except Daddy who is a Halloween scrooge). I dressed rather fetchingly as a witch, Jude as some sort of red she-devil-girl-wearing-eye-patch-with-blood-on-face, Sam as a googly eyed monster, and Luke in his new skeleton dressing up costume which Jenny & girls gave him for his birthday. Off we set down the cul-de-sac with our empty bags. As usual, at 6.30pm our first visitors complained that we were too early, and by the time we reach the bottom of the estate people complained that they didn't have hardly any sweets left to give us.

All in all the people round here really put a lot of effort into Halloween for the kids. Many of the houses were decorated, and lots of the people had made up party bags for the kids. As usual there were the few miserable old misers who moaned about us "not saying a rhyme" and begrudgingly handed over a half eaten mouldy apple. (I don't know why these people open the door!)

(Oh bless! I've just been to open the door to some late trick or treaters and I noticed that Luke and Steve have both fallen asleep on my bed!)

Anyway, good fun was had by all. The kids came back with a full carrier bag of sweets each! Many of the Mums I spoke to on the way round complained about problems with kids throwing fireworks. So its not just us that are experiencing this. While we were out we saw a gang of about 15 lads throw a firework at two girls who were knocking on someones door. They screamed and ran home. Their mum later told me she'd phoned the police, and all the kids disappeared into their homes, too scared to go knocking. When we got back up to our little cul de sac the police were there, running in and out of peoples gardens (Steve too!) trying to catch these hooligans. They caught the ring leader and confiscated a bag of fireworks from him. I don't know how much trouble he will get into. It was great to see the police doing something... it was like a raid! It's such a shame that these teenage kids are ruining the fun for the younger ones.

Anyway, I need to go and get Luke into a clean nappy and pjs without waking him up, Steve too perhaps!