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So for the second year running of Little Man’s 3 + years of existence, he has decided to abstain from the Halloween festivities. Wifey and I cannot really fault him on this one though. I think the lack of Halloweenieness exhibited by Little Man can be directly attributed to Wifey and my lack of interest in the candy laden “holiday.”
Firstly, can we really consider it a holiday? No one gets work off - not even government workers. Schools are still in session. The “festivities” really only last for a couple of hours. There is substantially more build up to this “holiday” then there is “holiday.” No one travels to different areas to partake of the Halloween activities. No one travels out of town the following day to visit grandma’s and Trick-or-Treat there. There is not a big meal “to-do” built into the “holiday.” It really is not that holiday-ish. It is like a big excuse for families to take a walk together (Yeah! Way to exercise!) and get candy for doing so (Boo! Counteracting the exercise!). The whole process is over in 2 – 2 ½ hours. That’s it. If you tack on the time it takes to sort the candy into its 2 respective groups: formed sugar (suckers, gum, pixie sticks, taffy-esque candy) and chocolate (candy bars), you might be able to stretch the time frame to 3 hours. There are sub-groups of these 2 categories to be sure, but I am not talking about them. Eating the spoils of the stroll through the neighborhood could last for some time, but that really isn’t considered part of the “holiday,” it is merely considered gluttony on a grand scale.
Okay, As you can tell my opinion of this “holiday” isn’t too stellar. For the purposes of clarity, Wifey’s opinion about Halloween really cannot be discussed in civilized society without many a ‘bleep’ and other sound effects. I also feel for clarification purposes I need to expound on the fact that the reasons that we do not like the day have no religious overtones to the level of dislike/hate that we exhibit towards Halloween. Our dislike/hate really is based on our own petty grievances about the day. As far as I know both Wifey and I do not have a deep seeded memory of some painful memory associated with Halloween. My uncle was not involved in some sort of bloody ritualistic slaying on All Hallow’s Eve in 1986. Wifey never found her neighbor dead in the front lawn due to a murderous psycho rampage of a masked serial killer who blamed it all on the holiday. We honestly do not have any significant reasons to dislike the day, but we do.
So, all in all, Little Man is not being bombarded with positive messages surrounding the day in the first place. He is not getting any amount of hype to build his expectations for the neighborhood event. He has no reason to look forward to the celebration of Halloween. He has no reason to look forward to dressing up and prancing around the neighborhood to collect allergens in a bag we will only have to throw away so he doesn’t eat something and react to it. Hint to all the parents out there who do not have kids with a peanut allergy: Peanut allergy is the most likely food allergy to exhibit a virulent anaphylactic reaction. Do not give out candy on Halloween that has peanuts in it! I REPEAT: DO NOT GIVE CANDY ON HALLOWEEN THAT HAS PEANUTS IN IT!!! This includes, but is not limited to the cute little bite sized Snickers bars. No one gives out bee stings for Halloween, because people can die from them! Think about it…
Anyway… to make a long story laborious and over explained, Little Man did not dress up nor did he Trick-or-Treat. On top of that he did not want anyone in the household to have anything on associated with a costume. It looks like we have trained him well…
To recap:
To the 15 year olds out there who were Trick-or-Treating:
A mask and what you wore to school that day do not constitute a costume
That is called wearing a mask
But at least you wore a mask and did not just take the pillowcase off your pillow like your jerky friend you brought with you so they could fill it up with candy
Leave some candy for the 6 year old girl dressed up like Bat-Man
She deserves it!
Not only for jumping out of gender stereotypes, but also for actually caring and being sweet
Okay, back to the recap
I think we are having steamed chicken tonight
Which is also what I will have for lunch tomorrow
Good luck to all the NaNoWriMo people out there
I know there are a few of you who read this here blog
Firstly, can we really consider it a holiday? No one gets work off - not even government workers. Schools are still in session. The “festivities” really only last for a couple of hours. There is substantially more build up to this “holiday” then there is “holiday.” No one travels to different areas to partake of the Halloween activities. No one travels out of town the following day to visit grandma’s and Trick-or-Treat there. There is not a big meal “to-do” built into the “holiday.” It really is not that holiday-ish. It is like a big excuse for families to take a walk together (Yeah! Way to exercise!) and get candy for doing so (Boo! Counteracting the exercise!). The whole process is over in 2 – 2 ½ hours. That’s it. If you tack on the time it takes to sort the candy into its 2 respective groups: formed sugar (suckers, gum, pixie sticks, taffy-esque candy) and chocolate (candy bars), you might be able to stretch the time frame to 3 hours. There are sub-groups of these 2 categories to be sure, but I am not talking about them. Eating the spoils of the stroll through the neighborhood could last for some time, but that really isn’t considered part of the “holiday,” it is merely considered gluttony on a grand scale.
Okay, As you can tell my opinion of this “holiday” isn’t too stellar. For the purposes of clarity, Wifey’s opinion about Halloween really cannot be discussed in civilized society without many a ‘bleep’ and other sound effects. I also feel for clarification purposes I need to expound on the fact that the reasons that we do not like the day have no religious overtones to the level of dislike/hate that we exhibit towards Halloween. Our dislike/hate really is based on our own petty grievances about the day. As far as I know both Wifey and I do not have a deep seeded memory of some painful memory associated with Halloween. My uncle was not involved in some sort of bloody ritualistic slaying on All Hallow’s Eve in 1986. Wifey never found her neighbor dead in the front lawn due to a murderous psycho rampage of a masked serial killer who blamed it all on the holiday. We honestly do not have any significant reasons to dislike the day, but we do.
So, all in all, Little Man is not being bombarded with positive messages surrounding the day in the first place. He is not getting any amount of hype to build his expectations for the neighborhood event. He has no reason to look forward to the celebration of Halloween. He has no reason to look forward to dressing up and prancing around the neighborhood to collect allergens in a bag we will only have to throw away so he doesn’t eat something and react to it. Hint to all the parents out there who do not have kids with a peanut allergy: Peanut allergy is the most likely food allergy to exhibit a virulent anaphylactic reaction. Do not give out candy on Halloween that has peanuts in it! I REPEAT: DO NOT GIVE CANDY ON HALLOWEEN THAT HAS PEANUTS IN IT!!! This includes, but is not limited to the cute little bite sized Snickers bars. No one gives out bee stings for Halloween, because people can die from them! Think about it…
Anyway… to make a long story laborious and over explained, Little Man did not dress up nor did he Trick-or-Treat. On top of that he did not want anyone in the household to have anything on associated with a costume. It looks like we have trained him well…
To recap:
To the 15 year olds out there who were Trick-or-Treating:
A mask and what you wore to school that day do not constitute a costume
That is called wearing a mask
But at least you wore a mask and did not just take the pillowcase off your pillow like your jerky friend you brought with you so they could fill it up with candy
Leave some candy for the 6 year old girl dressed up like Bat-Man
She deserves it!
Not only for jumping out of gender stereotypes, but also for actually caring and being sweet
Okay, back to the recap
I think we are having steamed chicken tonight
Which is also what I will have for lunch tomorrow
Good luck to all the NaNoWriMo people out there
I know there are a few of you who read this here blog
Labels: Holidays
5 Comments:
I completely agree with you on the "No Nuts" policy...we don't have allergy issues, but we have yet to eat anything peanut related...and I was shocked at how much they brought home.
The flip side? More for me!
Happened across your blog from my Google Peanut Allergy Alert. Am glad the non-holiday of Halloween is over as well. We did do a little ToTing, and had the ritual peanut and non-peanut sorting festival. All of the peanut stuff ended up in the trash.
Just wanted to let you know that you're not alone in the peanut allergy boat.
Good luck with NaNoWriMo. I'm getting ready to churn out my first day. Hopefully, I'll get it done before it's the second day. Cheers!
nancy:
Little Man has too many allergies to do that to him. We would end up getting all of the candy except for the stuff we gave out.
Anon:
Welcome to the blogarooney. Little Man is allergic to eggs, dairy, nuts, and peanuts so ToT-ing is not really a past-time that we can do.
I am not taking part in NaNoWriMo, but I know of a bunch of folk who are. I just do not have the time dsicipline to do 50,000 words in 30 days. So, again, good luck to all of you.
We are glad Halloween is over too!
Dealing with milk, egg, peanut, treenut, seeds, etc. allergies here. We let the kids t-o-t but they trade in ALL of their candy for a cool toy. They could careless about the candy once they see their new play thing.
Something to consider if the kid gets wind of how "fun" Halloween is and insists on particiating.
I like this interesting post
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