The Halloween Sweet Spot

8 and 6. Those might just be the absolute perfect ages for Halloween. Costumes, candy, school parties, ‘booing’ friends, carving pumpkins, ghost stories – they love it all!

I will admit that I loved coordinating the kids' costumes when they were little and they made for some pretty darn cute pictures.

But when they were that little, Halloween was more about what I wanted and the kids didn't really get it. Now, I happily sacrifice the cute coordinating outfits in favor of them using their imaginations. I love seeing what costumes they come up with each year. And as long as I don't have to make it - anything is fair game! Trick-or-treating with little ones can be hard work, and one scary clown sighting can ruin the entire night. We're past the hard work/scare easily stage and in what might be the very best stage. My kids are so excited to go trick-or-treating this year - and they want to go with us, their parents! Another couple years and they will be going with friends and my trick-or-treating days will be over.

So it's been Halloween all day every day at our house this October. 

I confess I am not a decorate-the-house-for-every-holiday sort of person. I do not have stashes of turkeys, Santas, and bunnies to haul out for the season. I’m more of the add-some-fresh-flowers and switch-out-the-couch-pillows-twice-a-year type. Except when it comes to Halloween. 

My fascination started small, just a few spooky spiders and ghosts here and there. But every year I add to the pile, and this year I feel like I hit a critical threshold. When my husband, aka Mr. Minimalist, says I’ve perhaps gone overboard, I know I’ve got it just right. We are surrounded by bats, spiders and mice.

I hope my kids will look back and laugh at how Mom went a little nuts on Halloween every year. Most days are spent teaching them serious things - lecturing them on trying hard in school, using their best manners and treating others with kindness. I give way more lectures than I'd like. I want to teach my kids it’s okay to be silly, even ridiculous (!) now and then. Find something that makes you happy and go all in.

And maybe I feel the need to amp up the fun more acutely this year than any other - because they are at that just right age, because they are growing up before my eyes. I want to hold on tight to the laughter and the fun. We are confronted with the opposite all too often. Just last week the kids heard Ryan and I talking about a senseless, horrific incident that took the young life of someone we knew. I told the kids the truth about the tragedy. They were incredibly sad thinking about the little kids who wouldn’t get to hug their Dad when they came home from school that day, will never get to hug their Dad again. Life can change in an instant and there is too much reality waiting in this world for my children to grow up and face. My heart breaks thinking of that family this Halloween, and for every holiday that will never be the same for them. All I know to do it say a prayer and not take this day for granted.

So bring on the ghosts and the skulls, let them have another piece of candy, and tuck an image of those wide-open smiles deep in your soul. Be a kid for a day.

 8 and 6 might just be the Halloween sweet spot, but I’m thinking 44 is right up there too.

Happy Halloween!