Halloween...the real thing

Happy Halloween.

We spent the morning trick-or-treating in Ann Arbor, followed by lunch at the Jolly Pumpkin (where else???). The event in Ann Arbor was sadly disappointing. A disappointing parade of uninterested kids strapped into outrageously expensive strollers being pushed from treat giver to treat giver by parents who were jabbering on cell phones. Where's the fun in that? At least two daycares worth of children were trudging along, kid tied to kid, while care providers walked into stores and declared that they needed 12 (or so) treats while the kids waited outside. I heard no fewer than three parents complain about the store that was handing out stickers instead of candy.

But Calvin and I had a great time, and a great lunch, and a great visit with the owners of our favorite book shop, one of which turned out to be a real Antarctica aficionado who fell in love with my little penguin and invited him back to view his Antractica collection some time.

The afternoon we spent resting and reading before making what we call Halloween soup (vegetable beef barley) and Italian bread. And, of course, trick-or-treating. This was the first Halloween that Calvin was really into the trick-or-treating activity. In the past he was curious, but not completely into it. This year it was hard to slow him down between houses, where I think his favorite part was actually saying "trick-or-treat", always followed by "thank-you" and/or "Happy Halloween". At one house he quite cheerily noted that "there's a dead guy in their front yard" (giggle, giggle).

We traveled about half of the neighborhood, collecting candy all the way, then returned home where he counted his candy, converting it to money, while snacking on grapes. He reveled in handing out candy to the later visitors. We read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow before bed. That's an all around great holiday.

More Halloween

Sunday, lazy day, carving pumpkins day. We were too tired Friday, and away for too much of yesterday, so pumpkin carving fell to this morning. Goopy pumpkin guts, slippery seeds, serrated safety knives. Calvin and I stopped by a local farmer's this year and came home with no fewer than five pumpkins that we fell in love with, so there was plenty of carving to do.

This is the first year we've carved pumpkins early in the day, so it's the first time we've finished carving while it was still light out and had to wait until later to see them lit up. But we had plenty to do in the meanwhile because it was practically Halloween on campus today, with events at the Natural History Museum and the School of Music's annual Halloween Concert.

The Natural History Museum was all decked out. Spider webs and pumpkins were everywhere, and what I can only assume were overworked grad students were handing out candy and running craft tables where kids could make spiders, color masks, and do a myriad of other projects.

Calvin would stop by the tables and start coloring a picture and gaze hungrily at the museum exhibits nearby. So finally I suggested that he pick up the craft projects to do at home and spend his time looking at the fossils and murals. That hit the spot.

Until we found the live animal fun room. That was enticing enough all on its own. Ball pythons, a water monitor, skinks, and newts.

Then the cherry on top—the School of Music's annual Halloween Concert. A full orchestra in costume is fun by itself, but the music of course is the real draw—lots of great classical music with dissonant sounds and strong, eerie beats. This was Calvin's first symphony orchestra concert and we had a great time. He sat on my lap and counted the bananas in the cello section, the elves in the percussion section. At one time I heard him quietly keeping time under his breath—1-2-3, 1-2-3—and then he turned to me and whispered in my ear "This is a waltz. See, 1-2-3, 1-2-3." He kept time on my arm through the whole concert, and I loved watching him take the whole thing in. The concert is a local tradition, one that I'm pretty sure we'll make our own from now on.

And finally, after dinner and a History Channel special, The Haunted History of Halloween, we lit our pumpkins and enjoyed them, in the dark, before bed.

Trick-or-treating take one

We spent the morning waddling through downtown Dexter collecting candy from the participating businesses along the main drag (read: the one street in town), and the afternoon waddling around the rec room at our homeschoolers group Halloween party.

Waddling is what penguins do.

A doughnut for lunch?

Cookie decorating (and eating) for snack...

spooky searches...

making salt dough ghosts and pumpkins and gluey and sparkly crafts plus a plethora of homemade munchies warm fall drinks...Halloween party homeschooler style.

And when we got home Calvin dove right into his candy, but not to eat it. We pay him ten cents per piece that he turns in to us, so the candy sparked an hour of learning about money and counting up his earnings. He opted to keep only one piece to snack on (tomorrow, since we'd had enough sweets today), and earned $3.50 for the rest. After all that excitement we were too tired to carve pumpkins after dinner tonight, so that has been postponed, but still, the Halloween weekend has begun.

It's beginning to look a lot like Hallowe'en

Halloween is cropping up all over our house. It has long been one of my favorite holidays so our halls are decked with pumpkin and bat lights that have journeyed with me since college, the front window is stuck with spooky clings, the bushes are decked in faux webs, the wreath is up, the box of costumes is out, the pumpkin cookies have been baked, the candy has been bought. Ahhh.

Tomorrow night will be pumpkin carving, after a day of partying in town and with our homeschooling group. We celebrate Hallowe'en via its historical and cultural roots, going all the way back to Celtic traditions and the festival of Samhain, so tomorrow night we'll read Halloween (for only the third time this week) and have Irish boiled dinner before we carve the pumpkins. This weekend we'll attend the annual Halloween Concert on campus (in costume, of course) and read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (for only the fourth time this week). Calvin has been cuddling stuffed pumpkins and ghosts and designing jack-o-lanterns like crazy. He's in love with anything bat right now, and any spooky story we can come up with (amazing what old folk tales will do for you). Yes, this is definitely a favorite holiday.

Some silly Halloween stuff (a portion of which is interesting):
Halloween printable activities
Coloring sheets
Activity suggestions (mostly arts and crafts)