Halloween Totals

The information you've all been waiting for . . . no it's not election returns, but Robin and Richard's Halloween Totals!

Number of Trick or Treaters: 153.
We were down significantly from last year, but we still had a good turn out. Because I was expecting 250 kids, the ones that did show up got A LOT of candy.

Best Costume: Forrest Gump (the little kid even talked like Forrest and his trick or treat bag had a box of chocolates on top.) Richard's vote goes to the Pink Flamingo, which was not supposed to be scary, but for some reason it scared the crap out of me. Chalk up another phobia. He also liked the firefighters in reflective gear (for the obvious safety reasons).

Kids talking on Cell Phones: 1 (although he paused his conversation long enough to trick or treat, and was very polite while trick or treating.)

Obnoxious Teenagers: 0 (what's the world coming to? They were all way polite. Maybe The Host by Stephanie Meyers is a true story).

Pieces of Candy Bought: 1600

Decorations the kids liked: I was worried about the placement of my giant spider because he was pretty spooky where he ended up and I was afraid he would scare the little kids walking past him as he is about the size of a small child. I got a lot of delighted "Look mommy, it's a spider!" responses instead. The string of eyeballs hanging from a tree was also popular. One little princess was absolutely captivated by the severed arm hanging in the spider web.

The biggest attraction of our house I think is that although we have a lot of scary decorations, we don't go out of our way to scare people or jump out at them. I prefer subtle terror to overt scare tactics any day. Halloween, at its core is about facing our fears and reaping the rewards after all. It's a lot easier to face those fears in a place where you feel trepidation but comfort at the same time. I think the pint-sized lady bugs, spidermen and firefighters would tend to agree.