HALLOWEEN!

It's that most tremulous time of the year...and not just because the financial markets are cratering and the planet (and political scene) is overheating and there is poison in products coming out of China. No, around here the quaking and shaking has more to do with Halloween than it current events.

The kids are shivering because they try to out-scare each other with spooky tales and by jumping at each other from dark corners (lots of them in a big, old, historic house) at every possible opportunity. Robert and I have the shakes because it is time, once again, to plan our annual Halloween hayride. This has morphed from a small, one-bale high hay maze in the front yard designed with toddlers in mind to a BIG DEAL in our neighborhood -- complete with jack-o-lanterns, blow-up pumpkins, massively decorated hay lug with flashing halloween lights, costumed kids and now --thanks to the past droughts and subsequent high, high price of hay-- no hay maze...but always a few bales for jumping on and hiding behind.

The first annual soiree took place around Graham's 3rd birthday. For two hours, toddlers and preschoolers scampered over the hay dressed as mostly Bob the Builders and princesses. Three-month-old Amanda, dressed as a pumpkin, watched the festivities from her stroller up in the back of Robert's truck. Right next to her, dressed as I-can't-remember-what, was her friend Luca. Each year, the party has grown, the costumes evolving with whatever trendy movie or TV show...When Amanda was four, we had a passel of princesses...almost every little girl came as a Disney diva and we had everyone represented...from Snow White and Cinderella to Sleeping Beauty, Belle and Jasmine. The big boy costume? Spiderman and Batman. Lots of super heroes.

Now, we invite everyone in each of the kids' classes, as well as the neighbor kids and the kids of parents we like to hang out with. Every child must be accompanied by their parents...this is not a drop-off center! I only serve two things -- apple cider and donuts. Cake donuts, no breakfasty glazed donuts. Just cinnamon-sugar, plain, and powdered sugar cake donuts. Those two things -- donuts and cider -- just say "Fall" to my Northeastern sensibilities.

For the past two years, Robert and I have said, "Enough?" Can we stop now? Then we look at our daughter, three years younger and thus, three less Halloween Hayrides under her belt than her brother and we say, "Not yet." Not until this event is cemented in Amanda's brain as much as it is in our son's...Not until we have done it enough that the kids will look back fondly on this tradition that their parents "miraculously" pulled off each year. When we are sure we have secured a place in the scrapbook of their memories, then maybe we will stop and go to someone else's party. Until then, October makes us shiver...