Rainy Halloween
This year, Halloween was a very rainy one. My 1 year old son L was sick and needed to stay at home with my wife. I was sent out with our 6 year old daughter E and 5 year old son C into the Halloween madness.
My first plan was to stop by a mall where there was candy being given out. We could get there early, visit a few places to get candy, and be home for dinner. Easy enough. Although we didn’t get there as early as I wanted to, I was hopeful my plan would work. When we finally went inside, the mall was packed. It was packed last year when we went, but this year, it was almost bursting with people everywhere. It was hard to move and there were lines to get small pieces of candy (which didn’t seem worth the wait at all).
The fact that some families were not watching where they were walking added to the chaos and within 15 minutes of being there, I decided it was time to leave. We luckily saw a person staffed by the Target store to give out candy and for whatever reason, there was no line there when we got inside the mall at first. That same person was standing there waiting for people as we left. I thanked him for his service and was glad we were watchful enough to scout this person out twice before we left to at least score some candy for my kids. He also loved our Pokemon costumes.
We grabbed Chipotle for dinner and we also got lucky there in a way where my kids and I were dressed up for the promotion to get a discounted entree. They didn’t limit it to one entree for me because maybe they had sympathy that my kids were running around the store and C was climbing in the booths. I grabbed the food and thanked them for the nice gesture to discount all our entrees and headed home.
Dinner was a fast affair for once since I promised E and C that we would go to the neighborhood behind the school to go trick-or-treating. Even though it was rainy, at least the crowds wouldn’t be as bad as in the mall. They ate their food quickly and then off we went again into the night.
When we got to the neighborhood, there were actually a surprising number of people out. We parked the car and stepped out into the rain. My kids were so excited to approach the first house and I had them go by themselves. E was so nervous and when they knocked, there was this build up of anticipation for what was going to happen. After a few more knocks, it was apparent nothing actually happened and ironically, the anticipation was anti-climatic.
As we were walking to another house, another kid screamed that it was the worst Halloween ever. I’m not sure if it was the rain or the fact that they didn’t get enough candy (or some other reason), but their parents had enough and were heading home. I’ve been there many times before myself, but my kids turned a corner on the constant tantrums and they had a great attitude despite the rain and changing plans. We went to a few houses and they got more and more excited to knock on doors and chat with people. They were so cute.
By the end of the night, I was tired and they had plenty of candy. The rain started to come down even harder and our costumes were getting soaked. We went to the car and were home before my wife wanted us back, which was a win. We showered up and just appreciated a memorable and rainy Halloween. What a good day.
