Halloween

 

We had a fun Halloween with three of the four daughters and their families trick-or-treating in Fincastle with us. Our little town goes big on Halloween! The old Fincastle Baptist church is a residence now and the owners always have fun props for Halloween. This year, the bell tower was lit up in spooky colors. Sometimes there are ghosts or bats flying up there too and one year they had an antique hearse parked out front. 

The festivities begin with everyone gathering in the courthouse square at 5:30pm. The town sheriff always dresses as Woody from Toy Story. At 6:00pm he makes an announcement to officially begin the trick-or-treating. Everyone pours down Main Street and then scatters throughout all the side streets. We make a point to stop at friend Karen's house and friend Eleanor's house. Steve goes inside to sit and visit with Eleanor's husband for a spell. At that point we lost him as the rest of us continued on our way trick-or-treating down the various streets. We all managed to find each other at St. Mark's on the other side of town an hour later. No small feat considering Steve had no phone on him and it was pitch dark. St. Mark's always opens their fellowship hall with hot dogs, lemonade, and other snacks, all for free or donations. It is also a good place to warm up if the holiday turns out to be chilly.

For the first time ever, we were told about a very special house at the top of the hill. Friends told us we needed to go up there because there was a scary maze, free light sticks, and full sized candy! Onward we went! Sure enough the place was all rigged out. There was an animated monster rock and roll band, a scary maze, costumed monsters, and full sized boxes of candy. It was dark and very hard to tell the dummy monsters from the live ones. I got spooked twice and screamed in fright, much to my kids' delight.

Claire's family drove up to come trick-or-treating with us and to spend the weekend. after we got back to the house, the three grand kids dumped their candy out onto the dining room table. They spent some time sorting and admiring all the candy. Before Matthew emptied out his bag, I weighed it and it was 4.8 pounds! I told them my childhood story of Halloween. I told them that knew every year that I would get thirteen pieces of candy. They asked how I knew that. I told them I lived on a dead-end street out in the country. There were thirteen houses, which meant thirteen pieces of candy. Every year. It was always great fun and I have happy memories of Halloween, the fallen leaves, the early darkness, and the chill in the air.