This is Halloween
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Another successful Halloween for the Sutherlands.
Paige
Halloween can be weird when you’re a seventh grader. Is it weird if you wear a costume to school? Is it weirder if you don’t? Is it cool to go trick or treating? Or is that totally lame?
I’m not sure how much longer Paige will still be into Halloween, but I’m happy we got at least one more year. She and her friends made their own costumes — ears, shirts, and skirts inspired by Winnie the Pooh. (Paige got to be Pooh Bear.)
For the third straight year, she and her crew trick-or-treated on their own, without hovering dads getting in the way. Though I’d like her to be hanging out with me, I did cross paths with her while I was out with the boys, and it made me happy to see her giggling with her buddies.
Tate
Tate got a Charlie Blackmon jersey when we went to a Rockies game last summer. When I told him he should be Charlie Blackmon for Halloween, he disagreed. “Kids at my school don’t even like baseball, dad.”
But there was one important factor that changed his mind. Though he had a Rockies shirt, he didn’t have a Rockies hat. (And there’s nothing that Tate loves more than a hat.) His eyes lit up when he realized that a Charlie Blackmon costume would net him something he normally would have to earn by doing chores.
He didn’t want to wear the beard to school — in fact, he wouldn’t even try it on — but when it was time to go trick-or-treating, he was all in.
When he walked into my room, donning the hair and beard for the first time, I burst out into laughter. And I couldn’t stop.
There’s just something about a seven-year-old looking like a grown man (specifically Forrest Gump when he’s running across America) that gets me every time.
Though the hair and beard were shed as the trick-or-treating got more intense, he wore it long enough to get some good pics, which I tweeted at the Colorado Rockies. When the Rockies liked the pic, the boys went nuts.
Curtis
It’s always a battle to find a costume that Curtis wants to wear. He has the same Charlie Blackmon jersey as Tate, but he didn’t want that to be his costume, even if it came with a new hat. For a while, he was talking about being a hot dog — which I fully supported — but somewhere along the way decided to be a referee. Solid choice. He even smiled of his own accord. A Halloween miracle.
Traci
I was hoping Traci was going to take advantage of her new hairstyle this year. I told she would have made a fantastic Billy Corgan or an even better Moby.
“I was going to be a pirate,” she said. “But I was just too tired.”
This is a Halloween she’ll be happy to forget.
Spencer
I like Halloween just fine. And I don’t mind wearing costumes. I just don’t like finding the costume. It always seems like so much work.
Luckily, at work I’m surrounded by people who are awesome at Halloween.
This year, the communications team transformed into the cast of Mario Kart.
When we were done racing around the building, we took the show on the road, walking our carts to a restaurant across the street for lunch.
Most people just stared at us awkwardly as we parked all of our cardboard carts in the corner of the restaurant. But one lady LOVED us. Not only did she offer to take a photo of us, she asked me to text her a copy when she was done. Not weird at all.
Trick-or-treating
We followed the usual Halloween night routine. Traci stayed home and handed out candy. Paige hung out with her friends. I stuck with the boys and their buddies. This year, they graduated from plastic pumpkins to queen-sized pillowcases for maximum candy intake.
However, the most interesting house on our route wasn’t handing out candy at all. Instead, they had a full-sized crane arcade game in their garage. Each kid (and dad) got one chance to grab a plastic ball. The Sutherlands came up empty handed, but it was still pretty cool.
Everyone came home happy.
Ready for next year
On the day after Halloween, the leftover costumes at Target are always half off. Still suffering from candy hangovers, we made our way to the store. We were rewarded with a blessing from the Pumpkin King.
Can’t wait for the Curtis Dog to be unleashed upon the world in 2019.
And a bonus video!
If this post wasn’t long enough, here’s so footage of our annual pumpkin carving night with the Bawdens.