Hallowe'en creativity

Number four wanted me to call this post creepy crafting but I am not sure that it is the best description of our pumpkin at the front door. My husband gets really crafty about once a year and it is with his jack-o-lantern masterpieces. Some years he has made more and they have always been with design detail contributed by the children. Some years he has been on tour with the orchestra he plays in or has a concert in the evening but this year he is home and available for fun. As we have many small children in our neighborhood it is much better to have silly pumpkins than scary ones.




Number three and number four in costume: a grime reaper and Harry Potter. I feel a little bit slack these days in the costume department as these were purchased although Number four is wearing his choir uniform's shirt and tie and a knitted vest from Nanan. Their older siblings had more creative home-made costumes: Pingu, Little Bo-Peep, knight(indoor -tabard, leggings), queen (would let me say she was a princess), fairy, Legolas(elf from Lord of the Rings), and Dark Rider (also from Lord of the Rings). I did make Number three a pretty good bat costume but when you can find some costumes for $20 or less and you know that they have lasting play value it can be pretty difficult to direct crafting time to costumes.



My creative contribution to Hallowe'en this year was a batch of chocolate cupcakes. I tried out edible decals for some of the decoration but found them somewhat difficult to work with and not quite as impressive as the packaging's photographs. I am glad that they were bought at a discount because I know that I will not be trying them again. I made these on Friday night which was a good thing as Number one started having flu symptoms later in the evening and I am feeling them now too. Number two went to a theatre screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show with a few of her friends and seems to have had fun.

When I was a kid, after Christmas, Hallowe'en was my favourite celebration and it was not because of the candy. I loved getting dressed up and can remember all of my costumes from the age of three. By the time I was ten, I was making them myself. At number four's age, I have distinct memories of the eerie feeling that ghost stories, decorations and even the wind blowing in the trees evoked and I am pretty sure that my children have felt that too. I hope that the richness of this kind of inner life continues to feed them their whole lives.