Trunk-or-treat

We managed to squeeze in a brief stint of coastal trick-or-treating with Will, the knight, last Friday while sick Owen, who never donned his dragon costume, stayed at the cabin with my parents. We procrastinated about the whole affair and as we drove through the 7 p.m. dark toward the little town center at Seaside, an obviously nervous Will asked, “Mom, why can’t we go trick-or-treating in the morning?”

Note to self: Next year trick-or-treat before dinner. Some four-year-olds get spooked in the dark even when they're wearing protective armor.

We learned at Seaside that we’d missed the business-sponsored trick-or-treat session, which catered to more responsible parents who got their little ones out between 4 and 6. But a semi-nearby Methodist Church was hosting a trunk-or-treat, we learned, and tourist-stragglers like us were welcome.

So we drove through the dark up a highway to a church in the middle of nowhere, where the trunk hosts generously dropped handfuls of candy and Cliff bars and packs of gum into Will’s jackolantern pail. He was only brave enough to approach about four trunks and he still came away with a hefty load.

“What do you say?” I’d ask him as we approached a new car.

“You say it,” he'd say shyly, pointing to me.

So we compromised. I’d count to 3 and together we’d chant “Trick or Treat” with Will speaking in a barely audible whisper.

I was grateful to the church for saving Halloween for Will – but part of me felt like we were trick-or-cheating. I thought about the days when I had to work for each bit of candy in my pail, going door to door and earning one little piece at a time, until I’d covered the whole town, walked a mini-Halloween marathon, worked up a sweat and filled my bucket with candy that I would count and organize and then savor, one piece at a time, until about a month later when I’d finally finished the stuff off. Will has apparently inherited that penchant for counting and organizing candy rather than simply wolfing it all down. He’s held candy arranging sessions every day since Halloween.

Here he is working up the nerve to approach his first trunk.

And here are a couple shots of the boys enjoying the beach with Grammy on Halloween morning, the one day when neither of the boys was nauseated.