06:05 PM ~ Yay, we just got our first trick-or-treater of 2002! It was a small dragon, and he chose a Snickers pumpkin, I think. Al is watching Designing for the Sexes in the living room, which makes it decidedly less scary, but we've done a good job on the outdoor decorations, I think. We've got the blacklight up again by the door, and we've put out the tombstones with glowsticks in front of them in the courtyard. Al hung the skeleton from the trellis, and the ghost is hanging by the front gate, where there are green and orange tiny lights wrapped through the branches over the doorway.
06:23 PM ~ We just got such a big gaggle of kids that I couldn't distinguish them all. They were all about the same size except two of them: one who was about 3 inches shorter than the larger kids, and another 4 or 5 inches shorter than the middle one. The smallest was dressed as either a cat or a mouse, I'm not sure which. They were all extremely polite, saying "thank you" and "happy halloween!"
06:28 PM ~ Another group of kids just arrived; one had on a horse suit (it looked very similar to the dragon suit the first kid was wearing) that was very cute. One I think was a pirate, and another was either an angel or a butterfly (Al says angel, I say butterfly; we can't decide because she was wearing neither antennae nor a halo). She was was by far the prettiest, but like her headgear, her "thank you" was missing.
06:55 PM ~ We just got a lone Godzilla and his mom. Well, his name was Ethan, but he looked like Godzilla to us.
07:08 PM ~ A cowboy and his sister, a witch, came by with their parents just now. We offered them a choice: Peppermint Batty or Snickers Pumpkin. We had to explain what a Peppermint Batty was; the witch thought it sounded very tasty, but the cowboy went for the known quantity: peanuts.
07:09 PM ~ A smallish and silent Scream ghoul just chose a Snickers. Al is mixing some bite-sized Snickers and Kit-Kats into the bowl, since we're running out of Battys and Pumpkins.
07:16 PM ~ Woo hoo! We were just complimented by a group of pre-teens on our scary decorations. They were trying to decide whether we were scarier last year or this one; the spokesman of the group, a glowing Frankenstein, declared it a toss-up. They cleaned us out of big treats, so now we're down to the Kit-Kats and Fun Size Snickers.
07:23 PM ~ It's so chilly out that unless the kids are wearing big suit-like costumes, it's sometimes hard to tell what they are under their coats. We just got a dog, a witch, and what I think might have been a mouse in a big winter coat.
07:24 PM ~ Oooh, a witch with a neat glowing bat on her chest just came. I missed it at first, but Al called her back so I could see it. Very cool. She was accompanied by a boy in what looked like a white gi (karate uniform).
07:25 PM ~ "Those kids were on a mission," declared Al of the latest group. "They were running." They seemed to appreciate the decorations as they dashed off, though.
07:28 PM ~ We just got a visit from the middle ages, in the form of several knights errant and a wizard. The wizard told us that he had one of the very same tombstones in the graveyard in his front yard.
07:52 PM ~ A kid all in orange with a pointed hat just came with two buddies. "Oh! you're a pylon!" I exclaimed. "No, I'm a traffic cone," he said, somewhat exasperatedly. Guess he's never heard the word "pylon" before.
08:04 PM ~ A very large kid (maybe 16 or 17?) just came with two much smaller ones. I asked him if he'd rather have a Snickers or a Kat-Kat, and he replied, rather sadly I thought, "oh, it doesn't matter." The little girl in the group was dressed as a kangaroo, and she pulled out the little joey in front to reveal a pouch full of candy, into which I dropped a Snickers. We found it completely charming, and said so. She beamed and thanked us.
08:12 PM ~ Witches are big every year at Halloween, but this year we seem to have had more than usual. We just got another pre-teen witch and her go-go girl pal. Al keeps cheering, "whaddaya say?" before he hands out the candy, and most kids take the cue, but the go-go girl seemed somewhat reluctant to actually say, "trick or treat!"
08:23 PM ~ A geisha girl just inquired about our cats as she took her candy; she thought Annie was a kitten. "No, just small," said Al. As she left, I spotted what looked like an enormous Yoda standing by the gate. "Did Yoda get some candy, too?" I asked Al. "No," he replied. "I think that's a parent."
08:28 PM ~ A grabby kid in a Mexican cowboy hat took a Snickers, then fished it out of his bag and traded it for a Kit-Kat. The elf and baby he was with were more polite. The elf didn't seem to know what a Kit-Kat was, so she wasn't able to decide between that and the Snickers until the baby shouted, "Kit-Kat!" That decided it for the elf: if Kit-Kat was cool, that's what she wanted, too.
09:27 PM ~ OK, it's past nine, and we haven't seen any trick-or-treaters in a while (we were able to watch Survivor on TiVO without any interruptions), so I'm going to declare All Hallow's Eve over for 2002. Again I'm sad that the decorations have to come down so soon, but maybe we'll leave the green and orange lights up, and I'll buy some pumpkins to take the place of the tombstones.