Saturday, November 1, 2008

Halloween 2008 - The aftermath

Wow! What a night! Dinner (homemade mac-n-cheese, steamed green beans, and chocolate cake) turned out perfect, we had tons of trick-or-treaters, and still ended up with a little candy leftover for us. Kelsey was an angel and sat with us allowing some of the kids to pet her head. As a special treat, she got to lick Dave's mac-n-cheese plate. Mmmm!

I have absolutely no idea how many kids we had. They were everywhere, although I noticed the traffic was not nearly as heavy - which was great. Usually, we hand out 1 candy per person and then subtract the leftover candy (if we're lucky enough to have any) from the total candy we purchased so we know how many kids there were. That was the plan again this year and we were ready with our 590 pieces of candy (we had 580 kids last year). Then our elderly neighbor came over and, looking for a quiet evening, she asked us to hand out candy for her. We readily agreed, sending her home with some of our chocolate cake in exchange. Then I went outside to add her candy bags to ours. It was then I discovered that her candy donation added a whopping 830 pieces of candy to our pile. Yikes! Then, our friend Jenelle arrived to experience the evening with us and brought an additional 3 bags of candy. Good heavens! We were handing candy out in 2's, 3's and 4's and we still had leftovers. Sure, there were lots of kids, but we were swimming in candy!

A little after 8:00 my friend Sharli swung by with her mom and 2 boys (dressed as Star Wars characters - they were SO cute). We enjoyed the rest of our meal picnic style, watched the end of the trick-or-treater rush, then finished up with cake back in the house.

As always, Halloween made for a wonderful evening. All the kids were adorable, we enjoyed time with good friends, and I had a great big smile on my face all night. One little boy, dressed as the Hulk, even gave me a hug and said "thank you" after I gave him his candy. It just made my night. Don't you just love Halloween?

7 comments:

Michelle said...

That sounds like a wonderful night! Good for you!

Farmer's Daughter said...

How nice! We only had one set of trick-or-treaters. There aren't a lot of kids on our dead-end road, so they all went out together. It was really nice to see them all together.

Michele said...

I'm so envious of your abundance of trick or treaters! We get only a handful, very sad. :-/

hmd said...

Michelle - We had a blast for sure! And I forgot to mention in the post, other than the candy it was very "green." For the dinner party we used cloth napkins and our regular plates, cups, and silverware. Not a thing thrown away (again other than candy paraphernalia). I was pleased with that.

Abbie - At least you got some. I was always disappointed when I lived in apartments and not a single trick-or-treater would come. It's just too much fun to miss out on!

Rapunzel - It can be overwhelming at times when they all come at you at once, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.

The Cooking Lady said...

I read on some cooking/health blog that you can get away from giving out candy if you plan ahead.

We do not get a whole lot of children here, but before I could tell my husband not to purchase candy it was a done deal. And he opened too many bags I know how his mind works. Once it is open, we cannot return it, so who gets their grubby little paws on the candy? My husband.

Next year I will be trying to hand out non-food items. Like pencils, erasers, stickers. If I hit the dollar stores and just throw these items in a box, then I am not crunching the numbers one week before.

Hey, I not it is not traditional, but who not start a new one!

J said...

It sounds like you all had a fun Halloween. I love seeing the kids in their costumes too. Sadly, I live in an apartment complex, and each year we get a small bag of candy (a kind that Brett likes) just in case we get a trick or treater. This year we didn't get any. :-( In the 4 years we've lived here I think we've gotten 2-3 trick or treaters. Such is apartment life.

hmd said...

cooking lady - I started looking for sales a month ahead of time which is why I managed to get everything so cheap. We tried to buy based on last year's numbers, but were thrown off by all the extra candy we were given to pass out by the neighbors. I'll probably cut back a little next year. The leftovers I'm going to try to give back to our neighbors (so we don't snack on them). If they don't want the candy back, Dave will take it to the office. Won't last 5 minutes there :)

jennifer - yeah, even when I put a sign on my apartment door saying "Trick-or-treaters welcome" I didn't get any knocks. You need a friend with a house to hang out at on Halloween night! The first year we made a pizza, lit some candles, and enjoyed the trick-or-treaters. It made for a fun date-night for us.