Happy Halloween-mas

This is definitely a first . . . posting Halloween pictures while I enjoy Christmas music and the twinkling of little white lights on a Christmas tree.

I knew I was going to be out of town for Halloween this year, since I traveled to California to help out Tim and Liz, so I made the costumes fairly early in the month, which worked out well because our Ward's Trunk or Treat occurred mid-month (and I was able to go!)

At first Phoenix wanted to be R2D2, so I ordered a large, round, white trash can online to fashion into a robot. The trash can arrived just three days before the Trunk or Treat in an alarmingly small box. Sadly, the "large" trash can turned out to be a very "small" trash can, not fit to encase a 9-year-old boy. So sad . . . and yet, so funny. Fortunately, Phoenix was flexible (not always the case), and he settled on Han Solo. I ran around to stores the next day, spent a couple of hours at my sewing machine, and whipped up a Han Solo costume just in time. 
 

As usual, Lutece knew months in advance what she wanted to be for Halloween. This year she veered away from scary and creepy (don't tell her that though) and chose to be the enormous golden bat Aurora from the book Gregor the Overlander, by Suzanne Collins.

Since I wasn't in town for the actual day of Halloween (the previous pictures were taken on the eve of the Trunk or Treat two weeks earlier), Stayc carved pumpkins with the kids on the day of Halloween.

Actually, I think Stayc just let the kids do the whole thing themselves, but he did take these two pictures :) . . . and the ones below of the actual evening.

It doesn't look like it in these pictures, but Halloween night was a rainy, sleety, snowy mess here in Lexington. We had our first snow of the season that night.

These kids are hardy though . . . and the lure of candy is too strong to let a little sleet and freezing temperatures keep them off the streets.

Another successful Halloween in the DuBravac household!

Random Halloween Roundup

Aside from the fiasco that was pumpkin carving this year, we had some good Halloween-y times. The day after OUR Halloween, on November 2, we took the kids to the ballet at the Lexington Opera House. Stayc had procured free tickets, which were available to UK professors (in his college?) since the production was sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences.

We toyed with the idea of getting a baby-sitter and just going by ourselves, but in the end, since it was put on by the Lexington Youth Ballet, we felt like it would be geared toward younger audiences and we made it a family event.

It was a good choice. There were lots of families with children at the event, and despite the loooong introduction, it was a great performance that held the kids' attention nearly the entire time. Really good Day of the Dead activity, you know, if you're into that kind of thing :) . . .

. . . which, apparently, we are. I found these cool Day of the Dead skull beads in Boulder while I was visiting Courtney and Aaron in Colorado, and I couldn't resist. The day before Halloween, while Phoenix was at Scouts, Lutece and I got to making some jewelry. She designed and beaded this bracelet for herself, which she wore to school on Halloween.

I didn't want to leave Phoenix out completely, so I tried to make him the most manly piece of jewelry I could. He thought it was cool, but he still didn't wear it. Ah well.

And then earrings for myself. So Goth (or Emo) of us.

Also the day after OUR Halloween, I made my usual deal with the kids . . . trade the majority of your Halloween candy for a brand new book of your choice. It was a tough decision for the kids this year, but in the end, they acquiesced. We strolled down to the Morris Book Shop and the kids browsed the children's section. Lutece chose this book, but Phoenix was undecided, and I convinced him to wait until we could look at Amazon for something that he really wanted. As it turned out, he knew exactly what he wanted, and he wanted it in Kindle format ("That's the way I like to read the Warriors series, Mom. I just do.") I like a kid who knows what he wants.

There were numerous benefits to having Halloween postponed one day, not the least of which was that all Halloween-related items in the stores were 50% off BEFORE Halloween actually occurred. Since we had friends over for dinner and trick-or-treating on Halloween (November 1), I was able to buy a spooky tablecloth and paper supplies for cheap. Bring it on Target!

Last, and yes, least, you never know what kind of crazy candy you'll get when you trick or treat in our neighborhood (one year the kids got packs of candy cigarettes . . . I didn't even know they still made those!). Lutece picked up this creepy specimen that not one of us was willing to try. The lid claimed it was a cherry-flavored gummy spider soaked in lime syrup. Hard to want to eat it, but cool to look at.

Happy Halloween!

The Carving of the Pumpkins

 . . . was kind-of a disaster this year . . . on so many levels.

1. We had a hard time finding decent pumpkins for a decent price.

We first went to a nearby pumpkin patch, which we have done in years past, to pick our own pumpkin. This particular pumpkin patch/orchard was crazy crowded, and when we finally walked over to the actual pumpkin patch (after the kids played in the huge Fall-themed playground for two hours . . . and $5 each), it was clear that NONE of the sad, old, ugly pumpkins had actually come from this state, let alone this patch. Needless to say, we left without pumpkins. I finally purchased two large, lovely, fresh pumpkins at the Kroger two blocks away.

2. Things got way more complicated this year.

Lutece informed me that she was "done" with just carving faces on pumpkins this year. She wanted something "more interesting." She had been eying this pumpkin-carving kit for weeks before Halloween. It looked like junk to me and I told her I didn't want to buy it. Undeterred, Lutece purchased it with her own money while I was away in Colorado. It came with about five pumpkin-carving tools, all of which broke within 10 minutes of using them, and a book of patterns. Oh, the patterns!!! So difficult to carve with crummy plastic tools! Even harder with kitchen knives once said plastic tools have broken.

3. We waited until the last minute.

Sigh. This was really the clincher. Since I was in Colorado the weekend before Halloween, the carving of the pumpkins got put on hold until, you guessed it, two hours before trick-or-treating, and one hour before the other family who we invited over for dinner and trick-or-treating arrived. Too much stress! I finally had to step away from the situation to get dinner ready and leave Stayc to pull out his hand drill.

Needless to say, we learned a lot about how NOT to carve pumpkins. Next year, we will go back to the happier, simpler ways of pumpkin-carving . . . or we will prepare much better for the challenges to come.

A Very Harry Potter Halloween

We had a fun Halloween this year, despite all of the glitches and setbacks. First of all, Halloween was postponed in Lexington and the surrounding counties to Friday, November 1. There was a huge storm forecast for October 31, so the city officially changed the date of Halloween. I love it!

The other major difficulty was that I spent the week before Halloween in Colorado, so the week prior to my departure I frantically sewed costumes to order. Lutece wanted to be a dementor (from the Harry Potter series), so we devised a dementor-style cloak for her. I ripped pieces of cloth to hang down from the cloak, but I didn't want to sew them onto the cloak permanently, so I attached them with velcro. This cloak can be used again!

The weekend before Halloween, at our ward's Trunk or Treat party (which I missed!), Lutece had her entire face painted with purple, gray, and black paint. She looked creepy and dementoresque, but she didn't want to go through the trouble for the actual night of Halloween.

She also sported the dementor's trademark scabby hands. I didn't have time to make them before I left for Colorado, so I left the gloves for Lutece and she created the scabs and sewed them onto the gloves. It's so neat that she is willing and able to help out with her costumes now!

Naturally, if Lutece was going to be a dementor, Phoenix wanted to be a patronus, and not just any patronus. A phoenix bird patronus (natch). I didn't quite know how to make it work, but I knew he needed to be silvery/white and that he needed to have wings.

It may not be the best costume in the world, but I am proud of those wings . . . and Phoenix wore them well.

If you have a dementor and a phoenix patronus to chase it away, then you NEED to have the wizard whose patronus is the phoenix bird. Right? RIGHT? So Lutece created a beard so that Stayc could be Albus Dumbledore.

 I get a kick out of looking at her detailed stitching. She did a great job.

The kids brought in a good candy haul on Halloween, but they were both ready to head home after an hour or so, which surprised (but pleased) me. Until next year!

A Very Happy Chinese Halloween

Holidays in China are a very different affair, and Halloween was no exception. (By "holidays," I mean the American ones we celebrate, not the Chinese ones in which we only semi-participate.) I've been thinking about the differences and what it means to us as a family (and me personally) and I thought I'd share.

Con: It was very difficult to come up with Halloween costumes because our resources are quite limited. I have no sewing machine. I can't find a lot of "crafty" items. We don't have a house full of junk to re-purpose into costumes.

Pro: The kids came up with their own costume ideas, which were much simpler than they would have otherwise been. Simpler is always better in my book. We used what we had and could find, and the kids did most of the work.

Lutece, the Troll, with her troll face on.

Con: The costumes were a bit silly and rag-tag . . . wait, did I put that as a con?

Pro: The kids got creative with their costumes, and since there was no one around to see them, it really didn't matter how crazy they ended up.

Lutece, ever the one for scary things, was a troll. She got the idea to make troll hair out of the macrame she's been doing. We bought some Halloween colors and then spent three days making more ropes to put in her hair. She wore some of Stayc's jammies and made herself a mace.

Phoenix was a super hero, but the type that only Phoenix could carry off . . . Super Cerebellum (we brainstormed various body parts as a family, but he came up with the final name on his own). He and I painted the insignia together. Do you like the added touch of the extra-large brain taped to his head? It was hilarious!

Phoenix, the super hero, ready to "think" to the rescue.

Con: No one else here celebrates Halloween, so there were no parties to attend, no Trunk-or-Treat with the ward, no school events.

Pro: There were no parties to attend! No school events to plan and execute! No trunk-or-treat for which to decorate, get ready, and clean-up! Halloween was a simple family affair. Lovely.

Super hero vanquishes troll with his mighty brains!

Con: Sadly, there was no trick-or-treating. Despite the fact that the kids get way more candy than is proper, we all love trick-or-treating, especially in our neighborhood in Kentucky. It is truly the perfect trick-or-treating neighborhood.

Pro: The kids didn't get an indecent amount of candy.

But I did try to make things special. I bought the fixings for hot cocoa with marshmallows and cream puffs (best I've had yet!) and after the kids had "trick-or-treated" around the house, we sat down at the table and enjoyed our treats.

Con: Tradition is good. I love some of the things that go along with fall in Kentucky, like visits to the pumpkin patch, baking pumpkin bread and delicious apple-y things, trick-or-treating, and yes, some part of the ward party and get-togethers with friends.

Pro: Those traditions, as wonderful as they are, can become constricting and burdensome. I find with every holiday the list becomes longer and the kids and I have certain expectations ("But we always make pumpkin sugar cookies." "It wouldn't be Halloween if we didn't carve pumpkins.") It was refreshing to throw off all those shackles and be unfettered by holiday expectations.

While the kids ate candy at the table, Stayc read to us from Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix, which we've been reading and which felt appropriately Halloween-y. It was a completely different, but equally great Halloween.

The lesson from all of this? I hope when we get back to the States, I can continue to keep things simple, pare down the traditions we've created, without taking away from the fun and memories. There has to be a way to do both. There just HAS to be! In the meantime, I will enjoy being in China where things, of necessity, are simpler.

Pumpkin Face

Once I got started with the Halloween activities, I was on a roll (ok, so maybe we only did two or three . . . but hey, how much can you do in a week?). When I went to the food market on Monday, I saw a man selling small pumpkins and I couldn't resist.

There was no way I was setting up a pumpkin carving station at the dining room table and having goopy, and later, moldy pumpkins laying around the apartment. Instead, I decided we could paint said pumpkins . . . faces on pumpkins but without the rotting vegetable guts. Sold!

I found these "poster paints" over a month ago at a little shop and snatched them up, but we had yet to use them. This was the perfect opportunity to break them out.

The paints are pretty awesome. Thicker, with more vivid colors than the poster paint you buy in the US. Sometimes you trade better quality for more toxic. It's just the sacrifice you have to make :).

We were able to do a lot with just the primary colors. The only color I wish I'd bought was black. It was Halloween, after all.

It got the kids into the Halloween spirit and helped them feel like, even half-way across the world, some things stay the same (or kind-of the same).

Since we had all the paints, and their subsequent mess, out, we set to painting all the salt dough creations as well. The pumpkins ended up being a small blip in the whole painting experience, but it was fun to have them around for a couple of days to liven up the Halloween festivities. Every little bit helps.

Salt Dough Halloween

About a week before Halloween (today), I realized that we had done nothing Halloween-related, that I had nothing planned, and that I was secretly hoping the kids would forget and I wouldn't have to do anything at all.*

Then the guilt set in.

And the kids remembered Halloween all by themselves.

Sigh.

So I pulled up an activity I had bookmarked a couple of weeks earlier and went into action. I mixed up a batch of salt dough (easiest dough ever . . . how have I never done this before?!?), and we sat down to salt dough Halloween fest 2012.

We made all sorts of creepy creations (think skulls, bats, ghosts, spiders, etc.). The kids came up with some great Halloween-y things I would never have thought of on my own. Lutece, as usual, was the last one at the table by about an hour.

As usual, I was the clean-up crew.

Yesterday, when the salt dough creations were marginally dry, and we already had the paints out for a different activity (post to come), we set out to paint everything.

It turned out to be a great Halloween Eve activity, and it assuaged much of the guilt that previously dogged me. It's amazing the woes a simple batch of salt dough can cure.

Lutece was, as usual, still painting long after the rest of us had finished. It's not that she's slow; she just has a greater amount of "craft stamina" than Phoenix, and inevitably, I have something else to do (like make dinner in this case). She really does love the arts and crafts. A girl after my own heart.

* In my defense, I had just planned and executed an awesome weekend trip up to Beijing. That's got to trump Halloween any day, right?