Weirdest Halloween Ever.

Halloween 1993 - The Balges hit the streets!

I wasn't expecting to see a lot of Halloween decor, or tons of kids dressed up for Trick or Treat, or grocery store aisles full of candy especially for the holiday. I wasn't expecting to see temporary Halloween Express stores crop up every few blocks. But I guess I had hoped for a little bit of Halloween spirit...to remind me of being at home this time of year. Halloween is my favorite holiday, and at Valpo there were always parties to attend and plenty of costumes to ogle. But out and about in Laval yesterday and today, I only saw a handful of kids in costume: 2 girls who had written "666" on their foreheads in lipstick (scary, and not in a Halloweeny way), and a couple toddlers, one of whom was just wearing a cape with his normal clothes...so I'm not entirely sure that was a costume. Oh, and we saw a few teenage girls dressed in all black (like that took any effort, this is France!) wearing witch hats.

I guess we kind of got the costume bug out of our systems early this year (with Jen's birthday party) because no one really made a fuss about not dressing up. But we went out anyway, which gave me an opportunity to get rid of some of the 200 Halloween tattoos I brought (thanks Target!). I'm happy to say Halloween did not pass without me eating way too much sugar; the Tootsie Rolls and Fun Dip my mom sent took the place of bags of trick or treat candy. I definitely got nostalgic reminiscing about sorting my candy on the family room floor, and deciding which piles to eat and which to save. Any peanut butter cups would be gone first, no matter how hard I tried to ration them.

Also: I just realized that not a single person mentioned Charlie Brown or The Great Pumpkin this year. And I didn't hear a single note of creepy haunted house music!