Happy Halloween!

I am glad Halloween is almost over. I'm excited to see all the bleeding skulls and cackling witches put away for another 11 months. I'm not against Halloween per say, but sometimes it's just too much. For a holiday geared towards kids why does it have to be so disgusting and scary? And everywhere. On our evening walk down to the Court House we have to walk Emily in front of our neighbour's house that is decorated with ghosts, a Frankenstein monster and dead witches. She's not old enough to be frightened by them, but I cringe to think of the questions she'll be asking next year. For now, this is the conversation:
Emily -- "what's that?"
Mommy -- "a ghost"
Emily -- "what's that?" (She is apparently unsatisfied with my answer)
Daddy -- "what does a ghost say, Emily?" (try the distraction tactic)
Emily -- "baaaaaaa" (she thinks I said goat, not ghost.)
Mommy and Daddy -- "sure".
And that's where it ends. And perhaps I've never been offended by Halloween until now because of the fact that I now have a daughter old enough to understand. But I think that the fall has enough of God's own beauty that we don't need to try to spice it up. What's wrong with pumpkins, corn stalks, and gorgeous red and yellow leaves?
Don't get me wrong -- we are taking Emily trick or treating tomorrow night. Who doesn't love a cute bunny costume with an even cuter baby inside? And lets not forget about the free candy. But we'll go early to avoid the older (scarier) kids, and only go down Metcalf streets to all the 'posh' houses. Hopefully we'll only run into Superman and Tinkerbell.


Hopefully Emily will tolerate the bunny suit long enough to go out -- if not, we'll throw some face paint and some cat ears on her. Brown coat, brown cords? Done.