The Halloween Party
The Halloween Party came and went. Talk about cutting it down to the wire. Every year Ryan's elementary school holds a Halloween party. The premise is that Trick and Treating was not safe and they provided a safe, controlled environment for kids to get all sugared up. About 10 or 15 years ago some lunatic was putting razor blades into candy bags and there were a lot of crazy rumours. Well in suburbia it is really safe, there are 1,800 homes in our development and the people there all have kids (we pay incredibly high taxes but that is because we have the best public schools in the country, so Jericho is all about the schools. Property prices are nuts as are the taxes).
The kids literally mob the streets over Halloween -it is really quite something to see. Its fun and people go overboard decorating their houses, Ryan and I had so much fun doing our house.
The way the Halloween Committee at the school, usually runs things is they set up mothers on chairs with a basket of candy on the floor next to them in the hallways. The moms look bored, the kids get wild and the word ho hum comes to mind. I worked on the committee last year, it took two committee meetings, and getting together the day before to unpack the candy - finito. Well this year I ran it, I think the principal nearly had heart failure. My friend in the committee teases me how it went from the easiest committee to being a Bar Mitzvah. We held auditions for readers for our haunted story. We had weekly Wednesday night meetings at my house and we did lots of e-mails, phone calls, etc. We got the dads involved and set them up in costumes, etc. We organized a haunted house, scary story complete with sound effects and decorations, an assortment of crafts. Josh and I transformed the entrance of the school into a haunted forest complete with woods, haunted house and a fog machine. It took ages for us to convince the principal to even let us do it, and once we finally do, we get a call saying that we have to cancel the haunted house because the insurance adjuster won't let us do the party without an inspection which would cost $350. Anyway we did not have a decision until Monday Night when they left it in my lap as we had to determine if we could budget the inspector in), I worked it into the budget (obviously :) so literally at 3pm on Friday the inspector arrived, he gave us approval at 5pm the party started at 6:30pm. Oy can I just say - my nerves were shot!!! We got it up and running, had an awesome DJ and the kids were blown away, we went for quality candy instead of quantity and got them these gummy eyeballs that are so gross, complete with veins - they loved them. I did a real Jewish Mama Mambo and over catered the event - there was so much food left over.
Side note: A friend of mine has a friend who moved to NY from Argentina, he had was appalled when on his first night of moving into his apartment, while trying to unpack, the door bell kept buzzing and kids were begging for food with their parents watching in the background. He handed out mints, a few individual lifesavers and then started in on his cans of soup and other groceries. He eventually called a friend of his and said that he was a bit annoyed that the friend had suggested that he live in such a poor neighbourhood. The friend was shocked and asked what he meant - he said all these homeless kids are knocking at my door, they are dressed in funny clothes. When his friend stopped laughing, he said, you idiot it's Halloween, stop answering your door. His neighbours when they got to know him laughed and told him how disgusted they were with the individual lifesavers and mints and thought he was a complete lunatic.
The kids literally mob the streets over Halloween -it is really quite something to see. Its fun and people go overboard decorating their houses, Ryan and I had so much fun doing our house.
The way the Halloween Committee at the school, usually runs things is they set up mothers on chairs with a basket of candy on the floor next to them in the hallways. The moms look bored, the kids get wild and the word ho hum comes to mind. I worked on the committee last year, it took two committee meetings, and getting together the day before to unpack the candy - finito. Well this year I ran it, I think the principal nearly had heart failure. My friend in the committee teases me how it went from the easiest committee to being a Bar Mitzvah. We held auditions for readers for our haunted story. We had weekly Wednesday night meetings at my house and we did lots of e-mails, phone calls, etc. We got the dads involved and set them up in costumes, etc. We organized a haunted house, scary story complete with sound effects and decorations, an assortment of crafts. Josh and I transformed the entrance of the school into a haunted forest complete with woods, haunted house and a fog machine. It took ages for us to convince the principal to even let us do it, and once we finally do, we get a call saying that we have to cancel the haunted house because the insurance adjuster won't let us do the party without an inspection which would cost $350. Anyway we did not have a decision until Monday Night when they left it in my lap as we had to determine if we could budget the inspector in), I worked it into the budget (obviously :) so literally at 3pm on Friday the inspector arrived, he gave us approval at 5pm the party started at 6:30pm. Oy can I just say - my nerves were shot!!! We got it up and running, had an awesome DJ and the kids were blown away, we went for quality candy instead of quantity and got them these gummy eyeballs that are so gross, complete with veins - they loved them. I did a real Jewish Mama Mambo and over catered the event - there was so much food left over.
Side note: A friend of mine has a friend who moved to NY from Argentina, he had was appalled when on his first night of moving into his apartment, while trying to unpack, the door bell kept buzzing and kids were begging for food with their parents watching in the background. He handed out mints, a few individual lifesavers and then started in on his cans of soup and other groceries. He eventually called a friend of his and said that he was a bit annoyed that the friend had suggested that he live in such a poor neighbourhood. The friend was shocked and asked what he meant - he said all these homeless kids are knocking at my door, they are dressed in funny clothes. When his friend stopped laughing, he said, you idiot it's Halloween, stop answering your door. His neighbours when they got to know him laughed and told him how disgusted they were with the individual lifesavers and mints and thought he was a complete lunatic.
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