When people hear I got married on Halloween, they assume that I’m really into Halloween. Not so. In fact, that couldn’t be further from the truth. When I was trying to convince Jarmon to go along with the Halloween wedding date (the only remaining fall date that our church and venue were both available) I used our shared indifference to Halloween as a selling point— “If it’s our anniversary, we’ll be eating steak dinners on Halloween rather than wearing crappy costumes in crappy bars!”
This year, the steak will happen on Saturday. Jarmon had to slip out of town for work on short notice, so Arabella and I were on our own for her first Halloween. For previously stated reasons, not a big deal. We went to a special Halloween edition of music class. It was also Arabella’s first time attending the big kid class. She’s still a little too young for it, but our friends were going to the big kid class so we happily joined. Arabella was falling asleep before class even ended, so I didn’t get as many fun Halloween photos as I’d hoped. But that didn’t stop us from lunching with friends after.
I was hoping to keep Arabella in her costume until Jarmon came home to pack for his trip— but she wasn’t having it. So I put her in her Halloween pj’s and called it a day.
She woke up late evening ready for dinner. Then it was time for the meticulously prepared Halloween gifts my mother sent to both Arabella and Baxter. Baxter knew one of the bags was for him and sat at attention waiting to be granted permission to dig in. Arabella, on the other hand, dug right in. I was shocked to see her pull over the bag and start to pull at the contents. Not going to lie— she loved the Halloween bear inside, but may have been even more excited by the sparkly gift bag. We wrapped up the night by reading all of the Halloween books that have now been added to Arabella’s impressive library (that has already run out of shelf space). Once Arabella was in bed, I had a glass of my favorite wine and a Halloween smiley cookie my parents mailed to us from Eat ‘n Park. Perfection. If you can’t spend your third wedding anniversary with your husband, this is about as good as it gets.
If it looks like Arabella has a lot of Halloween attire, it’s because she does. She’s been wearing Halloween clothing (purchased by my mother) all week.
Jarmon and I also got some treats– photog Ozie whose birthday is on our anniversary got us an especially awesome anniversary gift.
Baxter is always a little crazy when Jarmon is out of town— it’s like he senses my uneasiness at being home alone at night and feeds off of it. At precisely 3:30am, Baxter started barking like a mad man… which of course awakened Arabella. I’m not complaining. I appreciate his watchfulness, but if he could learn to be watchful without waking up his sister— that would be ideal. We had a middle of the night snack before all heading back to bed.
One last thought before putting Halloween to rest– family costumes. You know, when mom, dad and the kids all dress up in theme. I don’t remember this being a thing when I was a kid? We briefly talked about being a shark family… a lobster and chefs… three pigs and a wolf… but ultimately decided against all of it. My annoyingly rational side prevailed– who are we dressing up for? Arabella won’t remember it! If we don’t leave the house– who will take our photo? And if there are no photos– why are we even dressing up? So my question– were family costumes a thing when YOU were growing up? And, did you do one this year? If so, please share… I’m already stressed about next year and brainstorming ideas!
Trina Orlando 