halloween, two weeks later

i have never loved halloween. i don't like to be scared, i don't like spending money to buy crap for a country that already consumes far too much sugar, and i don't like my own kids to eat the stuff. it has been fairly easy to avoid, until last year when jackson spent a month working on a robot costume (never mind that on halloween he decided he'd rather be super-speedy-safe-guy instead of wearing the costume that consumed us for a month!)

this year we knew it would be challenging at best to avoid the holiday, so we decided instead to rethink it.

we love the creative costumes and have pretty creative kids, so we talked more about our costumes. jackson found an austronaut costume at a thrift store this summer, and designed a rocket to go with it. we all worked together on a bird "helmet" for claire to wear along with pink, pink and more pink.

last year we let the kids choose a few of their favorite candies to keep in a jar and we threw the rest away. that worked well and kept the HFCS to a minimum in our house. this year we heard about another idea and created our own version of the tooth fairy's offer!

steve told a great story about the tooth fairy partnering with the dental association and holistic doctors to make this once a year offer to kids: leave your candy on your doorknob and in exchange you'll receive a gift. immediately jackson's excitement grew! what kind of a gift would she give? we weren't sure, so we asked him what he thought would be a good gift.

a toothbrush.

sounds good to me!

i'm not hot on telling a big story to manipulate our kids, and the last thing we need is one more person who comes into our house while we are sleeping! occasionally, while we are snuggled on the couch, the kids will hunker in closer, look at the fireplace cautiously and ask if santa is coming down. i want them to know who gives them gifts and have the opportunity to express gratitude. i also like the opportunity to excite their imagination, especially with some honest conversations about belief. over the next couple days we talked about whether or not there is a tooth fairy, who she might be, what she might do with all that candy! inside they know that we're the ones that went out and bought that toothbrush (and a baby doll onesie and deck of cards), but i'm okay with them pretending that the tooth fairy really came.

the story of Jesus is, after all, pretty crazy!