Our Halloween wasn’t what I expected, but it was one for the books. We set up to hand out candy, with social distancing in mind, as our street is generally pretty hard hit. We set up our patio chairs for all of us to sit and watch trick-or-treaters stroll up the driveway. We made sure to set up a table with the candy 6 feet away from us, and down the driveway a ways, so that no trick-or-treater had to touch a doorbell, or anything else that might have been touched by others. We made sure we had our soundsystem going with some nice Halloween tunes, and had the carved jack-o-lanterns lit and awaiting the tantalizing and potentially terrifying tiny trick-or-treaters that were sure to arrive.
As we eagerly awaited their arrival, we enjoyed hotdogs, laughter, dancing, and just time together as a family. I had invited my father-in-law, and our oldest son, who we were sure had better things to do, to join us for the evening. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t pleasantly surprised when Christopher texted saying he was on his way, and double checking what time the supper would be ready. As we sat and enjoyed the crisp, cool, fall air we realized fairly quickly that it would likely be a scant year for trick-or-treating. We would have a family show up, and then another maybe 10 minutes later or so. At first I was a little disappointed, but as I sat back waiting for the next group of costumed kiddos to show up, I was thankful.
What I thought I would enjoy this Halloween was the colossal amount of trick-or-treaters, and counting how many of the same princess or superhero costumes we saw, but I was wrong. The joy came this year from a nice quiet evening with family. It was nice to watch our daughter playing, in her LOL Doll costume of course, with the neighbor kid from next door. She eagerly asked “can I PLEASE walk up and down the street with her?”, and it made my heart so happy. Happy to see her so at home with us, happy to see her playing with friends in the neighborhood, and happy to see her so content on our quiet little street. I was also overjoyed to see Zeke running and dancing up and down the driveway. It was such a drastic change from last year, which included Zeke riding in a wagon with an oxygen cart, tubes, and emergency equipment as he trick-or-treated.
Halloween 2020 was not the norm, or what I even thought it would be, but I would dare to say, it couldn’t have been any better. We got to enjoy time together for a homey, healthy, happy Halloween.
Fear is a Liar 
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