Boo!

In the blink of an eye it’s gone from March to October, and Halloween is fast approaching.  But this holiday promises to be different than usual.  Will there be a Halloween at all?  Gone are the days of light-hearted dressing up and trick-or-treating.  Last year, Halloween celebrations in my neck of the woods (northern California) were threatened by wildfires and power outages.  This year, we still have have the fires, but the pandemic might be the biggest threat to celebrating the spooky tradition.  

What will children do?  Is it safe to go out and about?  What about trick-or-treating?  Digging into a community candy bowl in close contact with others is probably not the best idea.  My husband already bought bags of Halloween candy that needs to be given away or I will eat it all!  I was thinking of making individual bags and placing them along the driveway for the kids to pick up.

Besides the candy, there are other ways to celebrate.  We have had Halloween parties in the past, but that’s out the window.  I love to dress up and have gone from full costume several years ago:

to a more relaxed version recently:

I doubt I will dress up at all this year, although I may throw on the t-shirt.  

We like to decorate the house and yard:

And I love to watch a good horror movie or revisit my favorite spooky stories:

  

My husband and I make it a tradition to visit a pumpkin patch every year, and this year was no different.  My idea of a pumpkin patch is paying five times more for a pumpkin than you would at the grocery store and having to lug it a lot further to the car:

My husband’s idea sounds like some sort of convoluted fairy tale about liberating the poor oppressed pumpkins from the pumpkin patch.  I tell him we can liberate them from the grocery store for 1/5 of the price, but he’s having none of that.  Having said that, it’s nice to get outside and enjoy the cooler fall weather.  It’s an al fresco activity with plenty of room for social distancing.  And there were plenty of fun photo ops:

What are your plans with the kids or grandkids this Halloween?  Do you have any fun Halloween traditions to share?

Angela Crider Neary is an attorney by day and writer by night. She is an avid mystery reader and especially enjoys reading novels set in interesting locales. She was inspired to write her first mystery novella, Li'l Tom and the Pussyfoot Detective Bureau: The Case of the Parrots Desaparecidos, by one of her favorite areas in San Francisco, Telegraph Hill.  Her second book, Li'l Tom and the Case of the New Year Dragon is now available.  To learn more, visit her on Facebook and Amazon.