Halloween at Chateaux Hektik

I think I've always been a fan of the Holidays. I don't know if this was a joy spurned by the brainwashing advertisements on television or their over-emphasis on their significance in school.

Either way, when I would know the time was coming near, I would get inexplicably excited. Inexplicably because I had no real justification for my excitement. My parents didn't really understand the holidays all that well. I don't harbor any harsh sentiment towards them because of this, it really wasn't their fault. I think they caught on about the the time I graduated from college.

I've walked in futile parades without a Halloween costume holding hands with the teacher as punishment for not dressing up. I would run home excited at the prospect of getting free candy but at the same time worried that I didn't have a costume to use. Somewhere inside of me was this blind faith that it would all come together in this perfect blissful blend of candy and happiness.

Frequently the day would come and go and my celebration would be spent handing out candies to the daring kids that would approach our dark, dimly lit 5-year-old one or two candle-in-a-tiny-ceramic-pumpkin, house.

Not fancy candies mind you. We would hand out candies that made me wish I had a really, really good concealing mask. Not so I could go get candies with it but one that would hide my face from the upset and frequently disgusted neighborhood kids.

Whenever we did have candies to hand out they were candies that we collected from birthday piñata's the entire year before. We had a huge ceramic Apple we would keep on top of the refrigerator in which we would store forgotten candies that we weren't allowed to eat. So long dead grass and miscellaneous clumped together Mexican candies were ungratefully accepted into their pillow cases. (Pumpkin buckets weren't made popular yet in our neighborhood.)

I would watch those kids approach with a hop in their step and walk away with drooping expressions of disappointment.

A little part of me wanted to go with them to those other, candy friendly homes.

Now in my home we only by name brand high quality, high fat, diabetes inducing decadence. Its not that freakin' expensive to buy good candies in exchange for a happy child's smile. I learned from this experience to be generous.