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I managed to get my Halloween decorations up a whole week ahead of time this year! Major improvement on my part, though I think I need to get some more lighting. We had a sizable turn out, despite it being a chilly Tuesday night here - I'd guess somewhere in the 120-130 range in terms of kids. I've decided mini Nerds are the ideal intersection of 'candy kids like' and 'candy I like'. I also got a cheap pack of plastic bugs for kids with allergy concerns or who just really like plastic bugs, and they proved more popular than I was anticipating. Best moment was when a small child held up a neon yellow plastic scorpion and excitedly declared 'Look, I got a lobster! I got a lobster'. To which I just kind of nodded like, yep, that sure is a lobster all right!

I also got a lot of compliments on my outfit, which was supposed to be 'Skeleton Grill Dad' but I think mostly just came off as 'Skeleton'. Proud that the make-up is remotely okay, because I decided on this last-minute and then discovered that I had neither black nor white greasepaint, and was forced to use a very old container of MAC creme eyeliner and a Nyx white eyeshadow pencil.

( I did, however, glow in the dark. )

I think my favorite costumes of the evening where a pair of teen girls dressed as the sun and the moon, or day and night - I didn't think to ask. Metallic skirts, fancy makeup, fancy hair pieces - one was in gold and white, and the other was in silver and black. Really pretty and creative!

Posting this in my journal mostly so I can find it again next year, which will be an issue if I put it anywhere else. We had trick or treating last night, as Thursday was rainy, and probably more importantly, got very windy as the night wore on. Typically for my time-disorganized-self, I ended up putting up Halloween decorations (which is to say: mostly just lights) an hour before it started. After running out of candy last year before the night was done, I kind of panicked this year and bought frankly far too much this year, but all of it is stuff I'll eat so it's not the end of the world.

Went through roughly 140 pieces of candy, including the ones I snacked on myself. I'd guess that comes out to probably 80 or 90 kids - most took one or two pieces, though if they asked, I was giving out two (see: too much candy) - it was just too much work to tell everyone 'take two'. Three or four kids grabbed a small handful (probably 3-5 pieces) - it was rare enough that I let it go without comment. Popular: Nerds, Skittles. Not popular: Nestle Crunch (doesn't surprise me), Snickers, and Butterfinger (slightly more surprising to me?). Toddlers tended to grab the Gobstoppers, I assume because they were the smallest packaging but I was mentally like 'oh no you're too baby to eat those safely'. Next year I will probably do a more curated selection - this year it was two big mix bags that had both chocolate and non-chocolate offerings.