Shopping for Halloween is fun, even if you don't buy anything. My kids run around saying they want to be everything under the sun. My daughter wants to be a pink bunny. My older son wants to be a fireman. We think the baby has to be a cow, just because we call him our little pig, and he always wants "the cow" (a little joke we have about how I'm not important to the daddy's boy, I'm just the cow)! Halloween always used to be on of our favorite holidays.
Well, last year was difficult. Without dragging out the negativity of it all, Halloween was almost ruined last year. My partner wasn't there. I was sick. The kids almost missed trick-or-treating. It just wasn't our year! This year I promised it would be better.
Already the track of life is taking a different path. We all went shopping for some Halloween goodies for my swap partner. It's a seasonal swap, so Halloween was in order. My daughter promised she would help me pick out some fun stuff so the package wouldn't be to "boring and grown up", so we all went off to Target and Walmart to check out what they had to offer. The whole experience turned into a whole big ordeal.
My poor older son is terrified of Halloween. He's always been an easy one to scare, so it's not surprising. Last year was pretty tragic for him, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. We're going to have a hard time getting him to go to any of the scary houses this year. He just runs away the opposite direction saying "I want to go that way!" Even the monster toy demo he saw at the store and thought was cool suddenly isn't. He's got to avoid anything that might be scary in the least tiny bit. It's funny, but at the same time, I feel bad for him. He'll learn to be brave some day.
Then there was all of the fun and games. The kids and my partner tried on all the glasses in the Halloween section. My partner and I had a gun fight in the aisle with two white Tommy guns that made noise when you pull the trigger. The kids made jokes about all the costumes being so incredibly funny or silly. Then we went through talking about what everyone could be for Halloween. My daughter, of course, had to make up a story for everything.
It's been a long time since we've been able to go out and be silly like that. Usually we're so incredibly serious and to the point of getting things done. There's no time to kick back and have fun with it. It's all a matter of sticking to the list and all the required things we need to do. Fun just takes too long!
These days fun has been getting more and more common. We're starting to look forward to just getting out, even if we don't do much at all. We're starting to feel more like a family again, and not just a collection of people who live together. I love my kids. I love my partner. Most of all, I love that we're starting to find these moments to make me smile happening more and more.
This is the season to be thankful. This is the season of love and family. As the winter comes on and the cold and miserable weather, there's nothing more wonderful than knowing you'll have family there to keep you smiling when things get dark. So this was about Halloween. Next time it will be something else. I just can't wait to see what the moments keep bringing!
No comments:
Post a Comment