Booooooooo! I'm Missing the Halloween Spirit.....

It's Halloween.  I finally put up a few decorations last night that I found in the garage, but I haven't been feelin' the Halloween spirit this year.  I am crabby.  My husband is sick, which means that I will most likely get solo trick-or-treat duty with all 4 kiddos, we spent way too much money on the pumpkins that we carved because we got them from a charity pumpkin patch, and combined with the costumes and such, Halloween is getting to be as bad as Christmas.  I am in a funk.  And it is Halloween.  I usually LOVE Halloween!  Why have you forsaken me Great Pumpkin??!

I went to get the kids' costumes and was disgusted by how expensive they were this year -- if I spent even just $20 per kid on a costume, that would be $80.  (The costumes were in a special section of the store right next to the Halloween inflatable yard decorations that started at $175 and went up to $400.)  I have a hard time plopping down that much coin for something that they will wear once or twice before it becomes a thing in a box in my garage that I don't know what to do with.  My kids are all so different that recycling costumes rarely happens.  Also, the girls are close in size and the boys are 6 years apart -- so am I supposed to MAKE Lorelei be what Bella was last year?  Am I supposed to hold onto William's costumes for 6 years and hope that Jackson wants to wear it?  I don't think that it's fair to say that the older 2 get to choose their costumes and the younger 2 don't.  So we went with "What do you want to be that is under $15?"

I was also disgusted by the fact that the options for my 7 year old girl were slutty butterfly, slutty pop-star, slutty pirate, slutty witch -- you get the idea.  She's SEVEN.  They had costumes in her size that were not appropriate for any age.  I even saw one that had a padded chest and one that was a Playboy Bunny.  For a little girl.  I know that a lot of people think that this is Halloween and that it is okay to let the kids "pretend" to be older.  I get that.  But I'd rather them be an older witch/pirate/butterfly that isn't going to get propositioned while trick-or-treating.  Then, this morning, I got on Facebook and one of the news stations that I subscribe to had a link up advising parents to check the Registered Sex Offender Website before heading out to trick-or-treat with your kids and I thought "Yes, especially if you have dressed your elementary school kid like one of the cast from Jersey Shore."  (FYI, I do think that it is a good idea for you to check it before you head out, but be sure that you also check as to WHY that person is on the list -- I freaked out the first time that I checked it because there were so many.  Then I started looking and discovered that almost half of them were on there because they had dated a 16 year old when they were 18 or 19 years old.)

Perhaps I have a hard time finding the Halloween spirit since the stores all have their Christmas stuff out already.  It is difficult to feel all creepy and Halloween-ish when the smell of cinnamon brooms is wafting over from aisle 4 and Jingle Bells is playing over the store's speakers.  The way the retail business is going with this whole Holiday thing, we are going to have to start picking out Valentines on January 1st, Easter baskets in February, and Halloween costumes right after the Fourth of July, so that we can start our Christmas shopping in August. 

And what about Thanksgiving?  Do the powers that be in the retail universe not realize that Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July are the ONLY universally celebrated American holidays?  It doesn't matter if you are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Atheist -- EVERYONE celebrates those 2 holidays because there is no religious component.  Where's the pumpkin pie?  The fall leaves?  The cornucopias??!!

So far, the best thing about Halloween has been that I can threaten my kids with it.  I told them last night that if they didn't go to bed RIGHT NOW then they weren't going trick-or-treating tonight (which was a total lie because there is no way I was letting those stupid costumes go to waste.)  Luckily, tomorrow I can start playing the Santa card. 

I must now get off of the computer for a bit and try to find my Halloween spirit.  Perhaps it is under that pile of dirty clothes in the hallway.....