While contemplating turkey pot pies and appropriate sides, I realized that I never mentioned Halloween.
For the past three years, I have been a menacing witch in the Schulte haunted house that took place in my in-laws' huge courtyard in their equally huge home. We didn't do that this year. So for the first time as a family, we got to decide what to do on our own!
Growing up, my family were and still are devout Filipino Catholics. I make that distinction, because mixed into the Catholic culture in the Philippines is a whole lot of superstition (not that that little fact applies right now). So, my dad always made food for our little altar to celebrate All Souls' Day to commemorate his mom and in recent years, my other grandparents. He always made the same food: spaghetti and biko (Filipino-style sticky rice). He would then take a plate of each of the dishes and place them at the altar so that, as he always put it, "Your grandma can eat."
Faced with my first real Halloween at my own home, what else did I make but spaghetti and instead of biko, champurrado (chocolate rice pudding). Yum. That night when I parents dropped by to see the kids' costumes, I gave them some of my champurrado and felt a certain sense of pride when my dad said that he would put some of my food on the altar for grandma, too.
This was also a special year because it was Dean's first ever Halloween and the first year that Dianna actually had a clue as to what was going on. In the weeks leading up to the special night, I did crafts, read books, and watched Halloween-themed shows (
It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown included) with her. I had Dianna practice saying, "Trick or treat!", which mostly sounded like, "Tri-tree!"
When the time came to dress the kids, Dean was in an awesome homemade Superman costume and Dianna was back in her flower girl tutu but with wings now included to be a fairy princess.
I've gotta admit that I was seriously nervous, because that little girl of mine is easily scared of people she doesn't know. But you know what? After the first couple houses, she sure got the hang of it. Walk to door, wait for Daddy to knock, door opens, hold up bag and say, "Tri-treat!" only sometimes, and "Thank you" every time. She loved it. And toward the end, "Trick or treat!" actually started to really sound like, "Trick or treat!"
What we found funniest was that for every home we walked up to that was the same layout as our own home, she seemed to just know that it was the same and walked right in. Cute now, but...we need to work on that one!
We already have a ton of ideas for future costumes: Dora and Diego for the kids, the Mr. and I as Dean Jordan and Cho Chang and the kids as Hedwig and Professor McGonagall in cat form, something Star Wars related...good thing we have a few more years before gently nudging their minds to fit our family-themed costumes just won't work anymore.
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