Halloween Hangover

At what point did hangovers become a three day affair? 

I don't drink too often due to pain from my bladder disease, so when I do drink, I do it up right.

Case in point.

 Thursday night seemed like the perfect setting to go all out in a blaze of glory, as it was the evening of the annual Witches Brew Cocktail that I host with some friends. The concept was begun by a fabulous, Halloween-obsessed military wifey back in Japan, and now people have taken the idea all over the world to their new bases. Now it seems like all of our friends at every base have one of these witch parties, and it's so fun to see the pictures. The only requirement is that you bring a hat and a broom; the rest of the costume is up to you. It's really neat to see what different people come up with. This year we had sexy witches, scary witches, business witches, party witches, housewife witches, Hocus Pocus witches, Harry Potter witches/wizards, and a Stevie Nicks-esque zombie witch (ahem, that would be me). 

The food was amazing, and the booze was flowing. Multiple Shots were taken. And then--out of nowhere--I ended up in a bar in Destin with a fellow witch friend, thinking man-oh-man, I'm going to regret this in the morning. And man-oh-man, I did. I regretted it the next morning. The next afternoon. The next evening. The morning after that. To save you time, I'll just tell you that I was hungover for about three and a half days. Luckily the kiddos were at my parents' house having a blast, so I could nurse my hangover in peace. But wow, I forgot just how bad being hungover is, and I have once again promised God that I will not drink heavily for another 10-12 months if He would just make it go away.

And that.

The kids returned home on Halloween morning, just in time for us to carve our family pumpkin. I think we may have skipped this tradition last year, since they were really too little to participate, but we decided to give it a try this year. People always say they miss having little babies and that they hate when their kids grow up (and if you have toddlers, that's a valid complaint), but I actually love that my kiddos are getting to the age where can now begin to take part in family activities. They had the best time helping with the pumpkin. Bobby would have played in the pumpkin guts all afternoon if we had let him. And then there was nothing else in the world like the big grins on their faces once they saw the jack-o-lantern completely carved. Bobby was so proud of it. 

I'm not even going to talk about the football shitshow that was the Cocktail Party this year, but tears may have been shed. We actually just turned off the television after half-time, put our costumes on, and headed out trick-or-treating. 

Here's the thing I don't love about trick-or-treating where we live: we are in the central time zone, so around Halloween-time, it literally starts getting dark around 4:45 in the afternoon. Now, maybe I'm doing this whole trick-or-treating thing wrong, and please correct me if I am, but I grew up going in the evening. And by "evening," I mean not three o'clock in the damn afternoon. This year we headed out the door around 5:30/6pm, which I do not consider to be late at all for trick-or-treating. That seems like a reasonable time to me. But it's pitch black here at 6pm, which makes it difficult to see, and freaking impossible to get good pictures. I don't love using a flash on my camera, but there's no other way to take pics when it's so dark outside. I need to have a better strategy next year, so I'm actually curious to know what y'all all do. Do y'all go early in the daylight? If so, do people even give out candy then? Or do y'all wait till dark and just say screw it?

Anyhow, it was dark, so we just went around the loop in our neighborhood. But the beasties LOVED it. Bobby really "got" it this year. He understood the concept of knocking on the doors, saying "trick-or-treat," and "Happy Halloween!" And he also understood the concept of keeping his candy on lockdown. I'll be damned if he was going to share any of that candy with anybody. Vivi, on the other hand, also enjoyed going door-to-door begging, but she was content to eat candy bars with the wrapper still on. 

Afterward, we laid around all day Sunday nursing our sugar hangovers and watching the rain fall. And now I have removed all of my Halloween decor, ushered in the Thanksgiving goodies, and am getting so excited for the next set of holidays! Have a great week!