I’m not a grumpy woman by nature, but Halloween isn’t exactly my favourite night of the year. I think I get more exercise on Halloween than I do pretty much any other evening. It almost feels like the kids are watching for the precise moment I decide to plonk my bum back on the sofa before ringing the doorbell again. Get up, Kady, you lazy cow. Like they know exactly how many croissants I had for breakfast.
And that’s before we even talk about the sweets. Giving sweets and chocolates away goes against every fibre of my being. If I go out and buy a bumper pack of lollipops or gummy bears, damn straight I’m eating all of them myself. That sugar is mine. I don’t want to share it with sticky-fingered little gremlins.
When I lived on my own for a while, Halloween night passed without incident. Nobody so much as approached the door. It came as something of a surprise, considering I lived in an otherwise busy neighbourhood. But I quite liked not having to sit in the dark and pretend I wasn’t home. (Don’t tell me you’ve never done that.)
At Mum and Dad’s place, seemingly every neighbour has at least one child they can wrap in loo roll and send out as a discount mummy. It can often be hard to tell whether that’s fake blood or crusted jam on their faces. So I have to get back into the spooky spirit and take door duty this year.
I’m not looking forward to it.
Would you be? Maybe this stems from the whole ‘deliberately childless’ thing, but seeing their faces light up like so many Halloween pumpkins just makes me less happy to be handing the goods over. This is probably the wrong time of year to feel like the Grinch, and the kids aren’t going to get the mixed metaphor.
