Sweet By & By

Holiday ho-hums

Ok, I've hit a wall with Halloween excitement. I think that's what happens when the revelry begins October 1 -- you want to burn all Halloween costumes and throw the grinning pumpkin decorations in the street by the 30th. Well, I'm not quite that bad, but suffice to say I'll be happy when I see November 1 on the calendar (and someone confiscates the roasted pumpkin seeds so I quit gorging myself). I was chatting with my sweet 68-year-old neighbor, who raised 4 children of her own and now has countless grandkids, and we both agreed that Halloween never was like this when I or her kids were little. Halloween began and ended on October 31, simple as that. 

The house pictured above does this every year with their pumpkins, but the costumes always change. So clever.

We had our potluck party on Sunday afternoon/evening, and spent that morning at Descanso Gardens' pumpkin-alooza event, which was quite nice, albeit pretty crowded and hot. I felt like a train had hit me when our guests all left that evening. I told B. to remind me next year how much work that all was and not to let me schedule any parties, and he snorted and said, "like you'll listen." I am not sure where I got the genes to be a party hostess and entertainer extraordinaire. Sometimes I really hate that gene.

So I'll wait to debut the kids' official costume photos 'til tomorrow, but the ones below show Mr. R trying out being a mummy, inspired by this super cute book, which we've read to him about 100 times since last week.   We used toilet paper & white/black makeup. He looks a little like a mummy with a turban on.

Ghosty House

This house is a perennial favorite at Halloween and Xmas - the kids call it "the ghosty house" year 'round. Its towering front evergreen tree is covered with flowing sheet ghosts, suspended 40-60 feet in the air by a complicated system of ropes. We only ever see it during the day, as it's on our way home from school. Imagine our absolute delight when we saw the ghosts lit up at night during one of our evening drives last week. There were many shrieks in the backseat as we drove toward it. At Christmas, the yard of this place is covered with small cut-outs of Disney's 101 Dalmatians, all decked in elf hats. When L. was in her dalmatian-obsession phase, we did drive-bys every single day.

 

Bittersweet colors

A hallmark of October in SoCal is our beautiful sunsets, most often caused by our equally predictable Santa Ana wind-fueled firestorms. We're engulfed now, and the news is hard to watch.