31 Days of Halloween Hijinks: Creating Your Own Halloween Traditions

Day Three:  Creating Your Own Halloween Traditions

There’s just something about Halloween that elicits a sense of child-like glee and imagination.  Whether it’s the dressing up, the scary stories, or the sense of acting like another person for a single night, I look forward to Halloween way more than Christmas each year.  Now that I have a daughter to share my love of the season with, it’s become even more special to me.  Don’t get me wrong, my wife and I have had great Halloweens in our 14 years together, but the addition of our little one to the equation has made Halloween better than I ever expected.

Prior to Lily, my wife and I would spend Halloween handing out candy to the neighborhood kids.  When we lived in an apartment, we would head over to someone else’s house to pass out the candy (for some reason kids didn’t come by the apartment, which is weird because when I was young, I saw them as one-stop-shopping), but when we bought our house, I finally had the chance to pass out candy at my own house.  The first year, we had to start candy rationing because we didn’t buy enough candy (and because I went a little too crazy with the kids with the best costumes).  That first Halloween in our own house also saw the first time I saw The Exorcist.  Crying shame I know, but better late than never, right?

So, with the first Halloween under my belt, I went into my second Halloween prepared.  I doubled the candy, I bypassed the issue I have with my front porch light by sitting in the driveway, and my wife and I were ready.  It seemed like a perfect storm: the weather was beautiful (Indian Summer-like conditions); it was a weekend; and we were ready.  Odd thing is, we had less than half the traffic than the previous year.  What happened?  We were dumbfounded, bummed out, and fatter from all the extra candy.

Now that Lily is around, our Halloween priorities have shifted for the better.  Instead of passing out candy, I’ve switched to dorky daddy mode.  Since Halloween is my holiday, my goal is to dress up with Lily every single year (until she’s too embarrassed to hang out with me…probably sometime in her pre-teens, right?).  Until she has an actual opinion about costume choices (which I readily admit that some of Lily’s choices for us will be potentially embarrassing for me), Rachel and I will make the decisions.

Lily’s nickname is “LilyBug” so that first year, we were both lady bugs.  That’s right, I was a 30-year-old guy dressed in a homemade lady bug costume.  The funny thing about it is, all the ideas I had to construct the costume didn’t seem to pan out.  I was trying to make this big, complicated costume and Rachel came to the rescue with the idea to make the dots out of black duct tape.  Because I’m extremely proud of the time I spend with Lily and I have no shame in dressing like a lady bug, check out a few pics of Lily’s first Halloween below.

Lady Bug and LilyBug

All Smiles!

Costume Change!

Chilling out after a great first Halloween

For her first Halloween, Lily didn’t actually go door to door.  My rule of thumb is, if you can’t walk on your own, you shouldn’t be going door to door.  So, now that she’s almost two, we’re going to go to a few doors just so I can show off our costumes.  Who knows, maybe Lily will even get a piece of candy or two in the process.  It’s not really about the candy to me when I plan on going door to door with Lily.  It’s about memories that will last a lifetime.  She won’t remember these first two Halloweens, but soon she’ll remember them and will be able to look back fondly (or not so fondly depending on future costumes) on the time she spent with her dad.  That’s all I can ask for.

So, are you wondering what we’re going as this year?

Giant Banana

and

Baby Monkey