Another Successful Halloween...

I've worked really hard to get things organized for Halloween - figuring out ways to juggle trick-or-treating with the family, get dinner on the table, put last minute touches on the decorations, greet kids at the door, etc.

But still with all the organization, reality had a way of intruding as hundreds of kids showed up last night. Being the largest neighborhood in our area means that folks from the surrounding hamlets and farms come to us for their trick-or-treating needs. Don't get me wrong - I positively love having all these kids come to our door. It just creates chaos.

We decided to go simple with dinner for the adults - a pre-made salad and a charcuterie plate (salami, cheese, and assorted olives). Even with that simplicity, I was up and down so much I eventually had to take a time-out to put together a plate.

The house looked great - I'm still tweaking things, but by and large our visitors loved the decorations, especially the dry-ice and water-fueled steaming cauldron on the porch. And we'd done both a Strong Bad and a Marzipan pumpkin for the porch (the old-timey Strong Bad, this year - see http://www.homestarrunner.com/ween_stencils.html ).

All told, several hundred kids came to our door. At one or two pieces of candy apiece, and giving out at times either one or two pieces, depending on our supply, we gave out about 500 pieces of candy. I actually had to go out and buy more in the midst of all the chaos.

More lessons to be gained for next year - and I think I'm going to do a massive spider web of Christmas lights.

- Andrew Langer