Getting Old
I’m apparently reaching the stage of crotchety-old-man-hood characterized by the liberal use of the phrase ‘when I was a kid…’ I’m actually fairly comfortable with this, but I do find it amusing.
Trick or treat was…anti-climactic. We had somewhere around two dozen kids or groups of kids over the course of two hours. I feel like we’ve had more in previous years and that they were more polite in the past. I get cranky when the kids don’t participate in the ritual…I want to see a costume, I want to hear ‘trick or treat’ (super duper bonus points if they’re little enough that it comes out ‘twick owr tweat’), and I want the kid to say ‘thank you’ at the end. I’d say about one kid in four managed all three, and maybe half managed the thank you part.
In any case, it was an excuse to sit on the porch, eat candy, and knit for two hours. It was a bit chilly, but I had a new coat and scarf, and I wore some mitts and it wasn’t too bad. I finished up this little cuff (it goes with the possibly-bug-adorned hat), and I am smitten with it. Like the hat, it is asymetric and can be worn inside out or rightside out as the mood strikes you. It’s the same yarn base as the hat, but it’s a solid. It picks up one of the colors in the hat though, so I declare that they go together if I want them to.
Even as matchy-matchy as I am, I can support your statement that these go together. 🙂 Cuff looks neat!
Well, my older girl (a purple unicorn who is four) followed the rules quite well. The little one (a black kitty), who just turned two and doesn’t talk a lot – managed to say ‘treat’ really softly a couple times. She mostly needed help going up the steep front steps and got drowned out by the older kids in our little gang.
At one point, after the others went charging off, I asked if she could say “thank-you”. She confidently said “Yes!”, blew a kiss, and walked away. Without actually saying thanks…
I know I melted… and so did the lady handing out candy.
The four and under set get a pass…it’s the ten year olds who can’t pull it off that bother me. But I really am a cranky old man, so it could totally be me being a curmudgeon.
Matchy-matchy, schmatchy-schmatchy – those totally go. And now I’m even more excited!
As for trick or treating….I had a migraine this year on the night, but since we’re in NZ and everyone acts (well, the majority of adults) as if Halloween is some lowly and insane American craziness pretending to be a holiday, I didn’t think we’d get any kids. Haven’t in the two previous years after all.
So I was rather surprised at the trio pushing adolescence that pounded on my door. I’m not sure what they were dressed as, but there were dressed as something. My inner old man was quite stuck on them being too old to trick or treat.
I allowed the rest to pound the door and get no answer while I hid in my bedroom and missed candy corn. After all – we had no candy in the house.
I read somewhere about someone who gave out individually wrapped prunes to the folks she deemed too old to trick or treat. I must admit I love that idea!
Prunes to trick or treaters — I’ll have to remember that for those people who come by twice!
Seriously though, I wish I lived in your neighborhood. We get over 150 trick or treaters each year…