Happy Halloween 2011!

Some thought we didn't dress
up last year...hmmm...what are
they trying to say???

When my parents were just starting out with our little family of five, they were like any other fledgling family financially. I often laugh with my husband that both of our favorite evening meals as children were when we had breakfast for dinner. Neither of us understood until we were in our parents' shoes that those favorite meals were the last ones right before pay day and grocery shopping, making do with what was in the kitchen. Some of my favorite memories are from that time when my Mama and Daddy used their ingenuity to provide for us with what they had. They taught us that happiness is not in the "things" you can get but in looking more closely at what you have. We were richly blessed with lots of love and wanted for nothing.

Our Vampire Old Lady

One of the things my parents did economically was dress us up for Halloween. I have seen 8 mm film with Sister and me wearing clown make up on our faces (probably Mama's make up used creatively) and our hair teased and ratted into the round clown hair. We are laughing and rolling around on the floor with new-born Bubba having the best time. The only down side that year was that our neighbor on the corner made cupcakes for trick-or-treaters, and we weren't allowed to eat them because there was a razor blade scare, which was the weirdest thing to me. Who was dumb enough to think razor blades were treats? Seemed like a dirty trick to me.

Darby's date last year wasn't
nearly as scary as she was!

Another memory I have is the first year Sister and I received our first vinyl dress and plastic mask costumes with the little nose and eye holes. I think they both were Barbies although I remember comparing the mask to my doll and thinking the little nose holes made her look more like Miss Piggy. We had grilled cheese sandwiches that night before our adventure out, and Gayla thought she would eat her dinner while wearing her mask. Mama or Daddy made her remove it at sometime in the meal and somehow our masks got mixed up. All I could focus on as we walked from door to door later on is, "Why does my mask smell like cheese?" Combine that with the design's structure making you create a sauna for your face, and I was never really keen on having masks again.

One of the only other Halloween's I remember is when we were all three in Elementary, and our school hosted a carnival set up throughout our classrooms. We purchased tickets to exchange for games that provided plastic trinkets or handfuls of candy to its participants. I spent all of my tickets walking around the numbered squares placed on the floor of Ms. Young's classroom in hopes of winning a cake for my Daddy. I won a huge German Chocolate confection on my first trip around and just thought that was the bees knees. I continued to play and walk each go around. After I won my second cake, I was politely asked to go find another game. I wasn't hurt because My Daddy bragged on me that night for winning him his favorite cake. In later years, I would try to win him more cake but never was triumphant.

She's talented!

Now that I am grown, I sit in amazement at Hubby Dearest's and Darling Daughter's obsession with this holiday. We probably have more Halloween decor than Christmas decor. They each have costumes that they embellish and improve on each year. Darby is even getting quite the reputation among friends and family for creative make up artistry. I keep thinking I will get into the spirit and start developing an alter ego of my own, but I have yet to catch the spooky bug. I guess I'll keep looking for a yellow hoodie sweatshirt and some overalls so I can be a Minion and carry my Dave Minion around with me.