Happy Halloween or Our Quirky Town

So it's January and I'm only now posting. I'm a bit behind. I know.

Our county's trick-or-treat night may or may not coincide with Halloween (October 31st) itself. If Halloween is on a Friday or Saturday, they switch trick-or-treat night to a weekday and announce it in the paper. And sometimes the night varies township to township (or borough as the case may be).

Since this information wasn't in our welcome packet when we moved here, we were WAY out of the loop our first year here. We were out and about on a Wednesday or Thursday (I don't recall which, but I do know that it was categorically not on October 31st) and as we got home, we saw all kinds of little kids dressed up and walking around. We were confused and considered many options:

A. A block party we hadn't heard about
B. A party at the local fire station
C. Briefly we wondered if we'd somehow missed that it was the 31st
D. No, that wasn't it. Were all of these people confused?

So, we got home and I called our local police station's non-emergency number and asked why people were dressed up and walking around asking for candy. They were confused by my question (I was confused by my question). They transferred me to the fire station where they, too, were confused. See, this is so normal to them that they weren't sure why I was confused so we were all sort of talking around each other. Eventually we learned that it was trick-or-treat night (which still confused me as it wasn't on the 31st!!) and over the years have learned that they move it when Halloween is on a weekend in order to either

A. Keep people out of trouble
or
B. Support local sports

See, no one knows, but these are the two speculations we've heard. Either way, now we get it. And now we know to check. So, on trick-or-treat night this year, which was not on the 31st, the kid got dressed up and enjoyed some really fun trick-or-treating.

We generally make a list of 6 or 7 houses of friends and drive around and visit them (as well as a couple of community places, like the local ice cream shop) and get candy. The kids enjoy seeing their friends' costumes and showing off their own and it's always a fine amount of candy without being overboard. The goal is not to get as much candy as possible, but to get some. They have not even ever thought to just attack some neighborhood and get a huge stash and I'm certainly not about to suggest the idea to them. We like it this way. They like it this way. Why mess with it? It works for us.

A Ninja and Hermione Granger

Us with the Rats

At Logan's house, we also saw Connor and Rowan

Back at our house, we handed out candy to the Waldrons

So yeah, our town is quirky. But we like it. One of our other favorite, quirky traditions is when Santa visits on a decorated fire truck. I kid you not. On a Monday night before Christmas, you can hear very loud Christmas music and sirens. We always run outside, poorly dressed for the cold, and yell repeatedly, "It's Santa!!" And there he is, atop a VERY bright and loud fire truck with lights shining on him and Christmas lights strung about, waving to all the boys and girls. He is in an entourage of fire trucks and the local fire fighters throw candy at us (our town is also big on throwing candy -- at parties, parades, Santa, you name it).

The economy must be picking up. This past year, we got Tootsie Rolls. This year? All sorts of Hershey bars. Merry Christmas!