Halloween - Best and Worst List

Halloween is always the toss-up holiday for us.  It can go either way - success or disaster.  Actually, it's usually both.  I'm a little slow pulling it together, but as a reference for next year, here is what went well, and what didn't:

Best of Halloween List:

• shaving cream pumpkins
• subsequent shaving cream fight
• trip to pumpkin farm with cousin
• equal opportunity pumpkin carving - everyone designs a body-part
• imagining costumes - a dog, a mirror, a tree, and whatever free association struck #4 in that moment
• making costumes (note:  not always on the "best" list)
• John's "bat-dragons" (basically a piece of black felt)
• a visiting cousin-aunt
• dinner with friends

Worst of Halloween List:

• a lost knight's helmet, resulting in a 45-minute scream delay before evening activities began
• stressed trick-or-treaters
• one said stressed trick-or-treater's distant cry from a pile of picturesque kids, gathered with open bags at a candlelit doorway:  "These people are so annoying!!!"
• missing old neighbors, as expressed by said stressed trick-or-treater: "But, nobody knows us!"
• repeated tripping over costumes
• smelling a freshly-eaten snickers bar on my 6-year-old's breath when she climbs into my bed the next morning.