Halloween Night at the Rainey House

Tonight, of course, is Halloween, which is a big event around here. Our house is all decked out in orange-colored icicle lights on the eaves, with purple string lights outlining the windows and the garages. I have a big, goofy-looking spider suspended by fishing line hanging from one edge of the house (he's lit up by a carefully-placed spotlight), and a friendly-looking ghost hangs in similar fashion at the other side of the house. We have the flower garden next to our driveway outlined in electric candles in greens, yellows and oranges, and there are several signs (all holiday bazaar finds) posted all around the yard, declaring "Ghosts and Goblins Welcome," "Happy Halloween," "Pumpkin Patch, 1 Mile," and my personal favorite, one with Snoopy and Woodstock looking freaked out, underneath the word "BOO!"
But, the real winner this year has turned out to be our newest addition: an eight-foot-tall, hot air inflated Tigger, dressed up as a vampire.
The giving out of candy is one of our favorite things to do. We both dress up in our bee outfits, and get Mollie into hers, too (see the picture here), and wait for the doorbell to ring. We so enjoy seeing all the cute outfits - the best ones are the littlest kids, who have to be coached by their parents for every line: ("Say trick or treat!" "Rickerreet!" "Say thank you!" "Tankoo!" )
We began to notice the flashes of light outside the window with the first few kids. We didn't really think much of it, until one parent finally asked us: "Can our son stand on your lawn next to Tigger and get a picture?"
It turns out that our Tigger was the hit of the neighborhood. We saw camera flashes the whole night. One dad in particular struck my heart - Jeff, who lives down on 170th, just around the corner from us. His little guy's name is Jamie, and he's maybe two, if he's even that old. Anyway, Jeff was the one who asked if he could have his son stand next to Tigger. He then told me that Jamie had made him come by our house every single night since I'd put Tigger up (almost two weeks ago) so he could see his bouncy, bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, fun fun fun fun fun friend. I saw him doing that last Thursday night - I was up in the loft on the computer, and all the lights except my desk light were off. I saw a big SUV pull up in front of our house, and saw a man get out, and get a small child out of a car seat. He carried the boy on his shoulders, and stood in our driveway for about five minutes, looking at Tigger. I figure Tigger was then, at that very moment, worth every penny I paid for him.
We have a nice Christian couple who have three young boys who just moved in next door to us (Michael, that was supposed to be your house!). They don't believe in celebrating Halloween, and, although I (obviously) don't agree with that decision, I respect it, and want to support Jeff and Carrie in their decision for their family. The sad part (at least, in my opinion) was the fact that the three boys did come by, right as the sun was setting, and told us they were allowed to trick-or-treat at our house only. (No, that's not the sad part). The sad part was, these boys didn't know the first thing about trick-or-treating. They came over right before we'd officially begun (I had the garage door open and was putting on my new license plate that the state of Washington decided I needed for my truck. If you ask me, the old one seemed just fine, but it would have cost me twenty bucks to keep the old number, so I told them when I registered for my tags this year that I'd just get a new plate, something they apparently do every few years here). The boys told us that we were the exception to their no Halloween rule (they greeted us with "Happy Harvest!" which, in all honesty, made me want to puke - again, I support Jeff and Carrie, but the mentality of "well, I didn't say 'Halloween'" seems kind of pathetic and sad. Whatever). Anyway, they stood around, with puzzled looks on their faces. Finally, one offered up, "I thought you did this thing from your front door." Realizing they wanted some grub, I told them to come to the front door, and they'd be our first trick-or-treaters. I shut the garage door, slid into my bee outfit, and stood at the door, waiting for the knock or the doorbell.

I waited.

And waited.

Then, for variety, I waited some more.

Kat and I stared at each other. "It seems these kids don't really get the rules of Halloween," she said, and I nodded, opening the door. The boys stood before me, with the same puzzled "what-do-I-do-now" looks on their faces. Conditioned to wait for the appropriate password for candy (i.e., "TRICK OR TREAT!!!" screamed at the top of a group of children's lungs), I stood there, just looking at the boys. Finally, it dawned on me: these kids had absolutely no idea how to trick or treat.
As I said before, that made me kind of sad. I gave them each a liberal handful of candy, and sent them on their way. (Truth be told, I allowed each kid to grab a handful out of the candy bowl - one of them tried to stuff two full handfuls into the pockets of his parka. I figured, why not - after all, we have to live next door to these kids). Still, it seems kind of wild to me that three kids could grow up in America, and have no idea whatsoever about how to trick-or-treat. I mean, wouldn't they have picked up the particulars of it from other kids at school? I don't know, just thinking.

About halfway through the night, when we were refilling the candy bowl for the fourth or fifth time, we happened upon some really strange candy that came in one of those bulk candy bags from Wal-Mart: they had flavored Tootsie Rolls! Katrina was the first to notice it, when she was that familiar Tootsie Roll logo in all green on some wrappers, and in yellow or orange on others. She tried a green (lemon-lime), and I tried an orange. My orange tasted exactly like a Creamsicle - heavenly. Convinced we'd found the best-kept secret in the candy culinary world, we began to dig through the bowl, separating out the coloroed Tootsie Rolls from the standard dark brown ones. When we were done, we had a pile of about 30 fruit-flavored Tootsie Rolls on the counter.
It's now 10:04 PM, and we had our last trick-or-treaters about a half hour ago. Kat has retired for the night, and I believe I'll join her.