Tag Archives: holidays

Rain, rain, Trick-or-Treat, and rain

Last year we had light snow for Trick-or-Treating. This year, it rained, not so lightly. Less cold; more wet. But Halloween is not for the faint of heart, nor the dry of clothes, so we took it as it came.

This year, we had a large group to Trick-or-Treat, including other parents to manage the marauding hordes. My wife, who is in charge of manning the home base, handing out candy, and pouring the wine, asked me to heat up some cider in a crock pot before our crew set out foraging. It was a good idea. A warm beverage would hit the spot when we got back from our raiding in the rain.

Big Man got just a taste of Trick-or-Treating before the weather encouraged me to take him home. Buster, and most of the other kids, got a moderate dose of Halloween and a moderate dose of wet before they, influenced heavily by parents, called it a night.

Big Brother, two of his friends, myself, and another father got good and wet, as we went back out to brave the storm after dropping the others off at home.

I'll always remember you this way, Batman: when you were still warm and dry.

I’ll always remember you this way, Batman: when you were still warm and dry.

Those last three kids will always remember this as the Halloween everybody stepped in a mud puddle. Nobody stepped in the same mud puddle, and some of us stepped in multiple puddles. None of our costumes included waterproof footwear.

A surprising number of people were out, considering the weather. Most had umbrellas, devices we rarely use and have never considered on Halloween. I began seeing more and more adults carrying paper coffee cups. It was like there was a Starbucks in the middle of our neighborhood suddenly.

The kids wanted to keep going; I couldn’t stop them, because, soaked as I was, I admired their tenacity. A little rain on their heads wasn’t going to stop them. A lot of rain on their candy might, though. Only when they noticed their candy getting wet did they entertain ideas of going home. Wet, cold skin is one thing, but children must keep their candy safe.

Eventually they agreed it would be irresponsible to risk the candy they already had to get a little more. We made our way home, not overlooking lit up houses on the way.

We got home, chilled and wet, but deserving the candy we’d collected, and most certainly a hot cup of cider. I went to the crock pot. Empty.

“Where did all the cider go?”

“Oh,” my wife replied. “I’ve been giving it out to the parents of Trick-or-Treaters.”

Welcome to the community Starbucks.

“People really liked it,” she added to sooth my disappointment. “One lady took five cups.” I wasn’t as soothed as she thought I’d be by the success of her Halloween largess. “We’ve got more cold cider in the fridge,” she concluded.

We poured more into the crock pot. While we waited, the other cold dad and I enjoyed a glass of scotch. That was better than crying over the spilled milk of human kindness.

I love you, Halloween, but this relationship is moving too quickly for me

We have a bowl in our pantry where we collect candy from special events to dole out periodically to the boys. Since it is pre-Halloween, there are slim pickings left in the bowl. The last time I let Buster pick something from it, we were down to a handful of restaurant mints and few pieces of bubble gum.

slim pickins

The empty bowl says it’s time for some Halloween. I should pay more attention to what our dishes have to say.

Buster, who has never had gum before, picked up one of the pieces and asked, “What’s this?”

“That’s bubble gum,” I replied. “You don’t eat it; you just chew on it for a while, then spit it out.”

Buster envisioned this strange ritual, made and face, and concluded, “I don’t know how to do this one.” He tossed it back into the bowl and took a mint.

It will be nice to get some candy the kids understand in the bowl again.

On the other hand, Halloween is approaching at a blinding speed this year. I don’t even know what the kids are going to be yet. Big Brother mentioned something about being a soldier again, but this year wearing my WWI doughboy helmet. I nixed that idea. It’s a steel helmet, which is going to get heavy on his head in about a minute, and I’m not carrying that thing around the neighborhood. It probably wouldn’t even hold that much candy.

The last thing a kid's going to want on his head for an hour, and an awkward candy carrier at best.

The last thing a kid’s going to want on his head for an hour, and an awkward candy carrier at best.

Some friends will be Trick-or-Treating with us. It’s more fun with friends, and the other kids will probably have good costumes. Maybe I can slide over toward the friends and kind of pretend we’re not with those kids whose parents don’t care enough to adequately costume them for Halloween.

If it’s snowing, like last Halloween, we’ll be off the hook. I’ll just tell my boys to make a show of complaining about how Mommy made them wear their winter coats and hats overtop of their super-awesome costumes. Cold weather is the great Trick-or-Treat equalizer – knocks the Pinterest parents down to my level for an evening.

Last year's jack-o-lantern, because there is no image of this year's jack-o-lantern yet.

Last year’s jack-o-lantern, because there is no image of this year’s jack-o-lantern yet.

This is potentially the first year for Big Man to go Trick-or-Treating. The thing about toddlers is they don’t walk fast enough to maximize the treats potential of the neighborhood, and we’re all about efficiency when it comes to collecting free candy. I learned my lesson about trying to carry a toddler around town several years ago when I wasn’t even as old as I am now, and when the toddler wasn’t such a substantial child as Big Man is. We’re going to have to put him on wheels, somehow. Maybe he can ride in the wagon with Buster, because, truth be told, Buster still slows down the operation, too.

Halloween shouldn’t be about a dad yelling at the big kids to slow down and the little ones to hurry up. It should be about friends and fun and treats and showing respect to your dad by giving him a fair cut of your candy for his trouble.

That’s the true spirit of the season.

Christmas advice for boys

An open letter to the boys who inhabit my house as Christmas draws near.

Christmas Day brings with it a lot of excitement. This excitement can make boys forget themselves and step outside of the bounds of acceptable decorum. When this happens, it creates a situation known as Too Much Christmas or TMC. TMC can result in a boy having to spend valuable Christmas minutes alone in his room, composing himself so he can resume his place in a civilized family before the Holiday gets away from him.

In order to minimize the risks of TMC, allow me to reiterate some general guidelines of behavior for boys of various ages.

Six-year-old boys

It is expected that you will wait until the entire family has opened all of their presents before you start tearing into the boxes containing your new toys and dumping the contents onto the floor. It would be wise for you to attempt to assemble only one new play set at a time, but if you insist on indiscriminately mixing sets, you should refrain from pouting when a crucial piece gets lost in the chaos.

In fact, you should refrain from pouting for any reason. This is your favorite day of the year. Don’t ruin it with a self-induced case of TMC.

Two-year-old boys

Santa brought you some very nice toys. Play with them. We understand that you want to help Big Brother build his kit, or tear it apart, as the case may be, but he doesn’t need your help. Yes, it’s sweet that you love playing with him, but today he has enough trouble keeping his parts organized, without your little hands moving things around.

Let him lose the first few pieces on his own so we don’t have to hear about how you ruined all his toys.

Eight-month-old boys

Don’t put that in your mouth! There are all kinds of little treasures scattered on the carpet today. Most of them are not food. If we don’t give it to you, it probably wasn’t meant to be swallowed. We don’t look forward to spending Christmas digging stuff out of your mouth, but we will if we have to. That’s not going to be fun for any of us, remember that.

Also, that’s probably Big Brother’s missing, crucial piece, so now I’ll have to hear about how you ruined his toys.

Forty-seven-year-old boys

Take a deep breath. You are the only one who would happily go up to your room and sit by yourself, but you are the only one not allowed to do it. It will be a madhouse, but you’ll get through it. You already had Too Much Christmas at about 7 a.m., but you’ve gotten your second wind. Yes, there will be whining and complaining – they will forget how happy they are at various points, but they will remember these moments fondly.  That’s the important thing.

Or maybe the important thing is when they’ve gone to bed and you can sit down with a tumbler of scotch. See? There’s always something to look forward to on Christmas.

Christmas cooperation

Nothing beats Christmas when all the little boys play together nicely (and then go to bed early).

Oh, Christmas Tree! Oh, Christmas Tree! We’ll try not to break you too much

Our six-year-old has been bugging us to put up the Christmas tree since Thanksgiving. There’s nothing wrong with this and I’m not complaining. I’m just stating a fact: he’s been bugging us about it. He’s six. That’s his job.

We’ve never put up our tree before December, though we have sometimes put it up early in December. But those were not years when we owned both a toddler and a baby. This year, the parents delayed as long as possible.

Buster won’t be too bad with the tree. He’ll break a few glass bulbs and yank some garland just to get into the spirit of the season. Then he’ll focus his destructive energy on other household objects as the tree becomes commonplace. Any real damage will be accidental, as he runs sideways into the tree while juking to avoid the football tackle of his big brother.

New Baby is a different story. He will eat the tree, one ornament at a time. It will become his seasonal commitment to consume any part of this giant Christmas cookie that can be reached from the crawling position. If he cannot reach a particularly juicy-looking berry, he will tug at branches with his Kung-Fu-Grip baby hands. He is a big, hungry baby, and his hunger feeds his ambition.

These are Mommy’s reason for delay. Daddy shares them, and adds a reason of his own. Daddy’s reason is that he will be left to assemble the tree with only the quality of help that a six-year-old and a two-year-old, working in unholy alliance, can provide.

Burgermeister Meisterburger

“Anyone who puts up a Christmas tree will be severely scolded in a cartoonish German accent!”

Mommy is the superhero of holiday cheer. She tracks down the most obscure gifts; she braves freezing cold for Christmas parades; she travels far to show her boys Santa, or even one of his less-renowned, black-nosed reindeer. But there is one thing Mommy doesn’t do. Mommy doesn’t put up Christmas trees.

Apparently, in the village where Mommy was a child, the Burgermeister Meisterburger decreed the decorating of Christmas trees a crime worthy of horrible punishments, because, to this day, Mommy flees to her quiet place at the prospect of tree trimming.

This leaves Daddy with his short stack of helpers. The moment they begin attempting to untangle strands of lights and free individual wire hooks from the grand hive of wire hooks, Daddy remembers who tangled the lights and packed the hooks into a wire nest at the end of last Christmas. This may remind him that, when it comes to tangling and untangling, little hands know only one direction.

This great revelation is useless. It will neither help him now, nor comfort him later, when a child asks, “Why won’t any of the lights in the middle of the tree light up?”

“Because that’s the tradition in this house, son. Are you almost done tying knots into the garland?”

We finally got the tree up and the lights on it, but then we had to take a break from all of the helping that was going on. It’s hard for anyone to get into the Christmas spirit once Daddy starts yelling.

We’ll take a breather, then give it another go. We should have it all up just in time to start taking it down.

who needs decorations?

Our progress to date. Maybe we’ll have more time to work on it after Christmas.