halloween just got a little bit cooler

listen, i've just never been a halloween person. i grew up in the pacific northwest where our halloweens consistently occurred in the rain. there's an awesome costume under all this rain gear kind of affairs. then we moved out near uc santa barbara where halloween gets taken to the next level, but not in a good way. our local grocery store piles pallets of cheap beer in the aisles in the few days before halloween weekend and students stream through our neighborhood in costumes both small (and tight and risque) and scary. it's gotten better over the years, but it felt yucky and dark and turned me off of halloween for a long time.

but this year we took the kids trick or treating and it all turned around.

tovi has been planning matching costumes for him and cruz for a looong time. wanna see??

curious george and the man with the yellow hat!! can you even??
we started trick or treating at ghost village road in montecito. the costumes were cute and creative. we felt like celebrities because everywhere we went someone would yell, "hey, it's the man with the yellow hat!" and tween girls would coo, "look at that george. he is sooooo cuuuuute!" the first time someone recognized cruz as george you would have thought he'd burst open with the pride of it all.

after about an hour, cruz and london got tired and hot and full enough of candy and ice cream (um, yes. ice cream trick or treating for the win!), so we headed home. we still wanted to go out in our neighborhood, so we convinced cruz to go on a walk with us to look at jack-o-lanterns. and we happened to bring his candy bucket just in case.
i don't know if our first trip out had served as a practice run or if the evening light made him more comfortable, but trick or treating around the neighborhood was the stuff dreams are made of. cruz was so bold walking up to each door for candy. he wouldn't say trick or treat, but he did say thank you, which i like even better. it was dusk and there was just something magical in the air. the neighborhood felt so safe and so friendly. we chatted with neighbors and rang doorbells of people we had never talked to before. all around us you could hear people laughing and calling out "see you later!" and "happy halloween!" our neighborhood felt like a community. we went to bed with happy hearts and tummies full of candy we stole from cruz's bucket. i think i could like this holiday.