Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. It is the one day a year that it’s socially acceptable to be something super bizarre, like a tiger, a princess, a ninja, or in our case, the characters from the Wizard of Oz. I always feel that we have to take advantage of family costumes while the boys are young. Soon they will branch off to dress up as their favorite cartoon characters, but for now, they are always excited about my costume ideas.
We specifically planned an out of town trip to Missouri to give the boys a chance to trick or treat the traditional way. Here in Massachusetts, we don’t really get the chance to bounce from house to house ringing door bells and collecting enough chocolate to fill our hearts. Our Halloween experience last year consisted of standing in a line for almost 2 hours for our town’s “trick or treat” experience. Honestly, it was lame. You’re standing in a line waiting for your turn to walk through a horseshoe shape of tables where kids literally just open their bags and people drop candy in…and then you go home. I wanted this year to be different. My Halloween memories were always trick or treating with family and friends, walking through the neighborhoods with tons of other children from all over and having the times of our lives – every child deserves this experience at least once.
So off we went to the small little town my dad and step mother call home. Getting our costumes ready was only half the fun. I was Dorothy, Carlos was a flying monkey that consisted of a baboon onesie and angel wings turned upside down (sometimes you have to get creative people), Vince was the tin man and Dex was the scarecrow. Mika, our fur baby, was going to be the lion but somehow she got lost in the excitement of getting ready – maybe next year Mika! My stepmom helped me go from a milk maid to Dorothy, my Walmart costume was easily super huge, and she also helped turned dexter into a cute little scarecrow with string “hay” and the perfect little hat that brought it all together.
We started our adventure at the veteran’s home and then set out into the neighborhoods for the kids’ first true Halloween adventure. Words cannot describe the fun they had. It brought back so many childhood memories watching them waddle up to the porches and ring the bell. Dex was pooped after about 2 streets, understandably so given that his bucket was super heavy and he’s only 3. Vincent continued on until the bitter end and loved every moment of it. He kept asking to go to this house and that house, he couldn’t get enough of it. It was super rewarding to see the big smiles on their face and hear the excitement in their voice with each house we went to. I hope this is something they will hold onto forever and hope that it’s also something we get to do again in the future. Happy Halloween from the Aviles bunch!
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