I like Halloween.  And I am a Christian.  Oh dear – I might be butting heads with someone out there!  But c’mon!

When I was a youngster, just getting ready for Halloween involved much decision-making.  Who remembers (back in the 60’s) those Halloween costumes with the plastic masks?  They all came in the same size box, about twelve by eight, and they usually had a one piece jumpsuit that you put on with a tie at the neck in the back and a vacu-formed plastic mask.  The boxes of costumes in the store sat on the shelves with all the masks peering straight at you through the clear plastic window on the box cover.  A little creepy, I know.  But it was agony choosing if I wanted to be a clown … or a …  witch … or a .. bunny!  It seems like the whole idea of costume marketing has exploded over the years with so many choices available for purchase.

Now I think that people have gone a little overboard with the scary stuff to the point of gruesome.  And some innocent costumes like Little Red Riding Hood have suddenly appeared in ‘naughty’ form.  But, Halloween was all about make-believe.  It was just plan old clean fun to dress up like Raggedy Ann or a scarecrow – just to toy with pretending so be someone or something else.

Now we Greshel’s all have a sweet tooth, so going door to door to get CANDY was like a treasure hunt for my daughters.  We would get out there for the whole allowed time prescribed by the city for trick-or-treating to get as much as we could.  Too much candy never hurt any of us!  Of course, when I was a kid we also got things like a handful of pennies, or plastic wrapped homemade cookies, and even apples.  Sadly, the sicko’s out there thought that it would be a good idea to put razor blades in the apples – and that just opened up ideas for more crazy people to put needles and nails in candy bars.  I never got any like that.  Some police stations actually provided x-ray services so you could scan your candy (they may still do that?).

I personally find nothing wrong with putting on a costume and gathering candy at Halloween.  Let the kids dress up and pretend to be something fun!  Let them collect a stash of candy!  Many churches and businesses are doing ‘Trunk or Treat” events where costumed kids get to go car to car on the premises and collect goodies from other members of said church or business.  I think that’s great!   It started as fun – let’s keep it fun.

Amanda has a Halloween party to go to tonight.  She approached me about a week ago and wanted to discuss what she was going to ‘be’ for Halloween.  Her idea?

“I could attach empty food boxes and packages to my wheelchair,” she said,  “And I could go as Meals-on-Wheels.”

LOL  Funny kid.

Sometimes she comes up with the darndest things!

just Laurel