TRI-LAKES AREA — I know it is not politically correct, but my favorite holiday is coming up tomorrow.
Halloween has been my favorite since I was a little girl. It combines two of my favorite things - candy and drama. (Drama as in dressing up and acting, not fussing and fighting.)
I also love, love, love pumpkins. My husband would say I’m obsessed.
“Do you think nine pumpkins are enough?” he asked the other day, as he tried to make it up to our front door. Mmm, not really, but I’m scaling back.
I’m addicted to pumpkin-flavored anything - pumpkin lattés, pumpkin pie, pumpkin ice cream (I could go all Bubba in Forrest Gump on this).
My favorite part of the holiday is giving out candy to trick-or treaters because I like to see the costumes the little kids are wearing. The teenagers carrying pillowcases, not so much. And, I’m still trying to get over the pregnant woman who came to our door one year with her exposed belly painted like a pumpkin.
My husband likes to keep a count of the trick-or-treaters, so I have a notepad nearby. Last year, it was more than 200 trick-or-treaters.
That’s why my husband starts buying one bag of candy every trip to the grocery store for a month. We’d have to take out a bank loan, otherwise.
We talked about some of our favorite costumes last weekend at my parents’ house, because it’s my 9-month-old nephew’s first Halloween. My brother and sister-in-law have ordered two costumes to try on him - a lion (he’s into growling right now) - and an Ewok (as I have mentioned before, my brother is a huge Star Wars fan).
I used to love to dress up our boys, who are now 18 and almost 22, and take them trick-or-treating.
One Halloween when my older son was about 3, he wore a little red raincoat and his fireman’s hat, and I had him carry his stuffed Dalmatian. He was adorable. For my younger son, I thought he was really cute the year he dressed as Aladdin, although he looked a lot like a little organ-grinder monkey.
I remember being a gypsy as a child one Halloween - wearing an armful of bracelets and a colorful skirt - and one year I was a witch with my long, thick hair ratted within an inch of its life. I don’t remember anyone but my dad taking me trick-or treating. He’d drop me off at the end of a street and drive down and pick me up. I was always thrilled to get a fun sized candy bar. Of course, back then, there were only about five kinds of candy in the whole world.
It was great when my little brother, who’s seven years younger than I am, started going trick-or-treating. That meant I got to dig through his loot and take what he didn’t like or couldn’t eat.
Right now, I know my house is full of bags of candy. They’re hidden, but I feel their presence. I’ve been strong, but come tomorrow, I’ll be inhaling Reese’s cups, Tootsie Rolls and my all-time favorite Halloween candy - those little crunchy peanut-butter logs.
Feel free to come to my house, but know this - the cuter the costume, the more candy you get.
Senior Writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.
Tri-Lakes, Pages 185 on 10/30/2011