Every Christmas season, I read about thousands of people who strongly protest the mass chopping and selling of trees at the Christmas tree farms. What I want to know is...why doesn't anyone stand up for the millions of victims of Halloween?
But, I digress...on to more interesting Halloween Happenings. THE TRICK OR TREATING:
Each year, my company sponsors a corporate trick or treat activity for the children of employees. Lots of decorations, candy and mayhem abound. Sadly, we are moving to our SF offices next spring, so for this final year in San Bruno, a lot of kids showed up to take advantage of the plentiful candy offerings.
Including all 10 niece and nephews! The 11th "older kid" niece (she is 21) was playing chaperone to help out this year (thank god!):
They came in waves...first off...the diaper and kindergarten set:
Then the elementary school refugees showed up (thanks to some Noni carpooling!):
They were a "bit" excited at the prospect of 6 floors of candy gathering:
Here they are invading my cubicle. Please note the photos on the right...and believe me, they checked to ensure they were represented!
and finally the "I am too old to care about trick or treating but I want that damn candy" middle school set arrived. I got ONE, count it..ONE photo of all of them before the scattering began:
The diapered and middle school set left shortly afterwards and then the oldest two (seen here sampling the office offerings) had a chance to get their haul:
a final shot of the youngest showing off her kill:
After traipsing all six floors of the building TWICE, often carrying a very sweaty 2 year old "ladybug"...I dragged myself home for a weekend of Halloween activities.
They came in waves...first off...the diaper and kindergarten set:
Then the elementary school refugees showed up (thanks to some Noni carpooling!):
They were a "bit" excited at the prospect of 6 floors of candy gathering:
Here they are invading my cubicle. Please note the photos on the right...and believe me, they checked to ensure they were represented!
and finally the "I am too old to care about trick or treating but I want that damn candy" middle school set arrived. I got ONE, count it..ONE photo of all of them before the scattering began:
The diapered and middle school set left shortly afterwards and then the oldest two (seen here sampling the office offerings) had a chance to get their haul:
a final shot of the youngest showing off her kill:
After traipsing all six floors of the building TWICE, often carrying a very sweaty 2 year old "ladybug"...I dragged myself home for a weekend of Halloween activities. THE PARTY
On Saturday (following the 12 year old's already blogged about party) I went to a "Harry Potter" Halloween party at the home of my ex kids (ex nanny here). Now, I never even read those books, but I have a passing knowledge of the films. So I purchased a Harry Potter scarf and showed up. OMG, the party was amazing. I had to take mostly video, cause the lighting was so low:
I felt my mere Potter scarf was severely inadequate once I saw those costumes!!
THE CARVING:
This year, the carving was done the day of Halloween. Somebody, I WON'T SAY WHO, seemed a little too eager to begin cutting:
we had to stop once to deal with a stabbing injury:
Ah, yes, here is the "organic pumpkin" I unwittingly purchased a month ago - I saw it in the produce department, liked the shape and when I got home discovered I had paid $15.12 for this very special organic pumpkin:
After a solid four hours of hard labor, my living room was showing signs of fatigue:
When we went outside to place our artfully sliced pumpkins, we found two artfully sliced pumpkins already in place! My neighbors, Katelyn and David (obviously much faster in the art of carving), had placed them there:
they did these, too:
Each year, we start with the "templates from hell" for the big pumpkins and end up petering out and carving traditional pumpkin designs on the smaller pumpkins by the end of the night:
Our first trick or treater..neighbor Ryjcki brought her tortoise Evan over to try out his new costume. He was a little slow in getting to the candy bowl, so we kicked him out:
The end result of our labors:
Please note, the white pumpkin remains uncarved. This is because that watermelon pumpkin in front of it was a NIGHTMARE to clean out! Not recommended for next year:
Squash art:
some pumpkins couldn't take the heat:
Now I don't know if it was the Giant's game or general laziness...but we only got 10 trick or treaters this year!!! TEN?? We had 50 last year!
we had to stop once to deal with a stabbing injury:
Ah, yes, here is the "organic pumpkin" I unwittingly purchased a month ago - I saw it in the produce department, liked the shape and when I got home discovered I had paid $15.12 for this very special organic pumpkin:
After a solid four hours of hard labor, my living room was showing signs of fatigue:
When we went outside to place our artfully sliced pumpkins, we found two artfully sliced pumpkins already in place! My neighbors, Katelyn and David (obviously much faster in the art of carving), had placed them there:
they did these, too:
Each year, we start with the "templates from hell" for the big pumpkins and end up petering out and carving traditional pumpkin designs on the smaller pumpkins by the end of the night:
Our first trick or treater..neighbor Ryjcki brought her tortoise Evan over to try out his new costume. He was a little slow in getting to the candy bowl, so we kicked him out:
The end result of our labors:
Please note, the white pumpkin remains uncarved. This is because that watermelon pumpkin in front of it was a NIGHTMARE to clean out! Not recommended for next year:
Squash art:
some pumpkins couldn't take the heat:
Now I don't know if it was the Giant's game or general laziness...but we only got 10 trick or treaters this year!!! TEN?? We had 50 last year!I was so upset I had all these leftover boxes of Junior Mints and Milk Duds. Really, I was.
