Halloween!!!

 So.....Halloween....during a pandemic.

I NAILED it!

All activities were canceled- no trunk or treat, no pumpkin patches (actually, the pumpkin patches were all open with Covid modifications, but we weren't comfortable going), no fun high school activities.

But, the EXCITEMENT of Halloween was greater than anything seen before.

Way back in August, I said to Ben, "I can't believe summer is over!" referring to starting school again. The girls somehow took it to mean that Halloween was the next day, and they immediately began planning their costumes. They spent HOURS researching costumes, and looking up what stores had them in stock, and then proceeded to beg us every day over and over and over again to go and buy their costumes. Their tenacity and laser focus was incredible, and so annoying.

Due to Covid guilt, for the first time ever, I spent money on their costumes. Normally I just say, "go downstairs and pick out something to wear," but not this year. Not when they were SO EXCITED, and, well, what else do they have to be excited about right now?

But after spending WAY too much for costumes, we had a quandary: where would they wear them with everything canceled?

I thought about it quite and bit and thought to myself: If we are outside at a park, everyone wearing masks and socially distanced, how is that dangerous? In fact, wouldn't that be safer than pretty much anything else Halloween related?

So, I decided to host a Halloween parade. I didn't know if people would come, but figured 20-30 kids would be a good number.

I started advertising and inviting friends, neighbors, homeschool groups, and ward members, and voila- 85 kids! I couldn't believe it!

And, it was perfect. The girls and I went and put X's every 10 feet. Parents stood on every other X, and everyone wore a mask. The weather was perfect. The kids were happy and laughing and so incredibly cute in their costumes. People were happy- it was fun. It was almost normal, despite those pesky masks. Did I mention it was FUN? Candy and costumes- the kids were in Heaven!

Here's Audra helping sidewalk chalk the path. They put things like "Hop to the next X" and such.

Originally Claire wanted to be Kim Possible, but it proved impossible to find that costume, so she settled for cop. Audra was Ginny and Camille was Hermione (don't get them messed up!).

The parade! We brought our 10 foot gutter to keep socially distanced. I also had Silly String to spray on the kids- the little kids were scared of it, the older kids LOVED it.

Baby E loved it:

I saw on Pinterest this idea and knew I had to steal it as I was looking for ways to hand out candy as safely as possible:

The "Monster House" was fun to put together! Our last trick-or-treaters were teenagers. They said, "This is a cool set up!" That's the best compliment I could receive! I think we are going to need to keep this gutter and make it a new tradition! As a bonus, and because it's Covid, I even bought full size candy bars for the trick-or-treaters. I have wanted to do that for a long time, and with Covid I really wanted to make Halloween special and different, so I did. Something simple, but it was fun and helped to make Halloween special.

I'm pretty sure the girls got more candy this year than any other year! While we didn't have very many trick-or-treaters (only about 20), Ben said there were a lot of treaters out on the main neighborhood streets, with most people either leaving a bowl of candy out on their step of sitting outside with a table to hand out candy. It made it very fast to go to a lot of houses in a short amount of time.

Grandma and Grandpa Marriott and Beth's family came over and went to the parade, ate some pizza for dinner with us, and then went trick-or-treating. They all had a blast and got WAY too much candy!

Then, my friend sent me this- a message from Nextdoor from a neighbor who had just happened to drive by and saw the parade happening. How sweet is this!!!!