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I have always loved decorating the house for Halloween.  We had a large garden growing up and we would take the over grown zucchini and carve them into ghosts and put them out in the driveway to lead the way to the front door.  It was creepy, for the small children, when they were lite, they look like eyes floating in the darkness up to the front door.

Every year on Halloween we got to make mummy dogs for dinner before heading out trick or treating.  It was such a treat to get to make and then eat our very own creations!  Then, every year from the time I could walk to the time I was too old, all of the kids in my court went out trick or treating with the moms while the dads stayed home to pass out the candy.  All those kids were like brothers and sisters to us and we are all still in touch to this day!  Maybe one day we will take our kids out together!

I have always loved halloween because it seems that it always felt colder on that day and it just really started to feel like fall!  The past three years, it has taken even more meaning since I have now celebrated it with a baby at hand and I get to dress them up in weird things and parade them around with beaming pride!  Now what day of the year is that even okay???  LOL.  Last year was my most favorite one so far since I got to spend it with a 2 & a half  year old tigger and a 9 month old winnie the pooh.  I loved the wonderful portraits that came of it.

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday!  I usually decorate early and turn my apartment in to a haunted house!  As a child, I loved to dress up as a princess or a witch.  Anything that involved a long dress and a cape! 

My favorite Halloween costume of all time was this boy who came to my house a few years ago.  He had small boxes of cereal all over him that had knives and blood and bullet holes in them.  I asked him what he was... and he said "A Cereal Killer!"  I loved it!  I gave him half the bowl of candy for his creativity!

This year, my six year old son wants to be Darth Vader!

My favorite Halloween Memory was created when I was 31 in the year 2000. I was a new mother to 2 young daughters, ages 31/2 yrs and 3  months old.

The baby, Ellen Marie, was only 3 months old and as cute and as chubby as could be -but boy was she a cryer! Before my girls were to old enough to trick-or-treat my husband and I had a grand time setting up the house with spooky red lights, creepy music wafting from the kitchen window, glowing pumpkins on the walkway and spooky skeletons dangling on the front door; we dressed ourselves up too so we could "play" with the neighborhood children when the doorbell rang for treats.

Halloween 2000, I dressed up as a witch wearing a black pointy hat with scraggly gray hair dangling below the brim. I placed green warts on my chin and nose, and gave myself dark gray circles under each eye. I wore green lipstick. My costume was classic witch-garb; a long black flowy dress, black cape with a big spider sewn on to my right shoulder, and big black pointy boots. It was the perfect Halloween Witch get-up. I answered the door each time with a flicker of the red porch light and the announcement in my crackley-est, witchy-est voice of, "Hah Hah Hah why who is it? I wasn't expecting company this late in the evening!". My three-year old laughed and giggled as she watched me transform from gentle fun Mommy to snickering costumed Witchy-poo. She was just delighted with the Halloween spectacle that was her Mother.

Later in the evening, trick-or-treaters trickled by, and soon enough it became 20 minutes or so before the next group would appear for their treats. The evening was getting late, we were going to blow out the glowing pumpkins and turn off the red porch light.

My 3 mo old baby had just awakened from her evening nap --and of course, she was howling like a banshee (she was very good at this), and I was still dressed in full witchy-garb. We had to change the baby's diaper and just as soon as I had her in only a clean diaper, with her bare little chubby body bulging out all around the edge of it, the doorbell rang. Out of habit for that night, I quickly held the baby under my left arm like a football, and went to answer the door. When I opened the door and looked at the children in front of me - a group of 6 - their eyes were big with surprise - and I used that surprise quickly to my advantage as I cackled loudly, "Ahhhh hah I was not expecting any company this evening - you see, I was just about to eat the baby for dinner, would you like to stay?." (Of course the baby was still crying). Their little mouths dropped and they looked mortified! Even the adult chaperone looked at me with surprise and perhaps a teeny-tiny bit of fear too.

I turned around and pretended to ask for a pot to put the baby in so I could hand out some treats to the guests. Then one child spoke up and said, "Please don't eat the baby, we have some candy you can have instead", and he handed me his treat bucket which was almost filled to the brim.

I turned back to the children, quickly held my baby Ellen upright on my hip, and said: "So, what did you all think about my Halloween trick?" Then I smiled big at them, gave them all a wink and used my regular Mommy voice; there seemed to be much relief in the group. I gave each child a huge bundle of treats for their buckets and told them all not to worry about the baby, that she would be fine and it was just time for her feeding which was the reason she was crying so.

The children took their treats, gave me hesitant "thank yous", and quickly escaped our red glowing porch. Before leaving the adult turned to me and said, "Oh that was good, that was really good. I don't think I will ever forget you". I laughed and replied, "But isn't that what Halloween is all about?" 

I stood at our front door, with baby on hip, smiling and waving good-bye to our family's last group of Halloween 2000 trick-or- treaters. 

My girls are now 8 and 11 years old, and although neither one remembers the events from that Halloween night, they do love hearing this story over and over and over again -especially when I use my cackly voice to announce, "Why, I was just about to eat the baby."

It is indeed a creepy yet very funny memory.  But isn't that what Halloween is all about? For me, it is!