Tricks and Treats

It's been a few years since the five of us trick-or-treated house to house as a family. The last time we did may have been our final year on Turner Street--though that would have just been the four of us anyway, as Lucia wasn't even born yet.

Since our big move over to School Ave, we have celebrated Halloween in Nonantum, where each of the kids joins their own friends in marauding around the neighborhood. Natalia and I usually split up--she follows the girls, I follow the boys, and then at some point we switch--and then we all see each other again at the end of the night, after everybody's bag is overflowing with candy.

I do miss the routine of going door to door as a family. Or, more accurately, I miss Halloween when the kids were tiny. Andres and Celia were so cute back then.

Now, Halloween is a much more social event for them, and they would rather hang out with their friends than trick or treat as a family. I get it. No, I'm not sad about that. Ok, maybe a little.

The gang, before trick or treating.

This year, though, not much went according to plan. We met up with a bunch of other families in Nonantum, and before I had a chance to reiterate ground rules to Andres (stay with your friends, don't run off, watch out for traffic), he was darting house to house with his posse, only vaguely telling me where he was going. (He was also dressed as a skeleton, just like 80% of the other boys his age.) No matter, though--Natalia and I had the girls, and were only trailing behind a little bit. We could follow him.

That's when Lucia (dressed as Tinkerbell) decided that she didn't really want to walk house to house. She preferred to be carried. She was also scared by some of the costumes, and terrified by one in particular--that of a wolf wearing a nightgown, being worn by someone who was going house to house with us.

Trying to manage/appease/calm Lucia took a few minutes. Celia (dressed as Ariel from The Little Mermaid) waited and walked with us, but by the time we had figured out a plan for Lucia (Natalia decided to just take her to a friend's house in the neighborhood), Andres was long gone, hopefully with at least one parent he knew. So were the gaggle of girls who Celia was planning on joining.

Well, this was unexpected. And not entirely bad for me, either! With everybody else gone, Celia and I could go door to door together until we found some of her friends. That was pretty great. I did feel a little bit bad for her, imagining that she viewed me as a third-tier Halloween partner...but if she did think that, she didn't let on, and we had a blast together. We talked about candy, naturally, especially my love of DOTS. She tried a Butterfinger--and liked it! (This surprised both of us.) We talked about which decorations were scary, and which were nice. We also talked about proper door etiquette, and the importance of saying either "Happy Halloween!" or "Trick or treat!" It was great fun. Eventually we found some of the girls we had lost at the beginning of the night, and the night got even better for Celia.

My little Ariel.

Andres, though, was still a mystery. Natalia and I were texting with the parents of some of the kids who Andres had gone off with (though none of them had gone with that group), and we thought we knew where they were and which parent they were with--though none of us had his cell phone number, so confirmation was difficult. I wondered whether I should be worried. I decided that I would not be. Young trick or treaters managed to stay safe well before the age of cell phones, and I had no real fear that Andres would get lost. I just hoped that he would make it back to the car before 11 pm.

It was dark by now, and getting cold, but we stayed out for a bit longer. Finding peers had rejuvenated Celia--and she was on a mission to collect as much candy as possible. We finished the neighborhood loop, then tackled a couple more streets, then just one more, and finally headed back to meet Natalia and Lucia (who was perfectly content not to have trick or treated at more than 3 houses).

And then, finally, a sighting! I ran into the parent who I thought had been shepherding Andres and his friends around the neighborhood. Yes, he said, he had been with them--but they had just run off to get a few more houses. I looked down the street and saw three kids, all dressed in black, holding big bags of candy. They were having the time of their lives.

FOUND: Two skeletons and one ghoul.

I caught up with them and, once I verified all of their identities, gave Andres a quick talking to. I didn't want to ruin his night--but I didn't want him to repeat this disappearing act next year, either. Then we stopped at one more house to top off the bag before heading back inside with everybody else.

Another successful year, mostly. Nobody got lost, more than half the kids had fun, and everybody collected enough candy to keep me and Natalia happy for weeks. Hopefully Lucia will begin to enjoy Halloween more as she grows older--at least enough to tolerate a night of trick or treating. But who am I kidding. As soon as she is old enough to venture out unafraid, there's no way she's sticking with us.