I’m not one who goes all out for Halloween.  But, I do think there are a few things all kids want – a costume, candy, and something to put their loot in.  Mine also care that we do something to decorate our house.  Since I’m not big on decorating in general (there is no Pinterest here), we stick to pumpkins and a few decorations we’ve bought (and kept) over the years.

I’ll talk more about costumes (with pictures) next week.  But today I thought I’d touch briefly on the other Halloween elements.  Namely, I thank Target for their orange pumpkin buckets.  They have other options/colors, but orange pumpkins are what my kids want and they are durable enough that I can keep them year to year (which I do) while cheap enough that I can replace them as needed.  And, the best part is that they never seem to change so as we’ve added more kids/pumpkins there’s little “mine” when they emerge from the closet since they all look the same.  I’m also glad the dollar store has $1 packs of glow sticks/bracelets/necklaces/etc.  At that price I can get one for each kid for when they stray from the flashlight.  And, they stop working promptly that night so there’s no need to save them.

Next year I do need to add a charm or such to each pumpkin so we can keep track of whose candy is whose.  I used to just keep them lined up at their spot on the table.  Amazingly it wasn’t touched.  But, my preschooler has figured out how to eat candy when nobody’s watching so I need a new system.  This year I put a note in each one, but that’s a little hard to deal with.