Trick or Treat!

Well tonight was the big night for the kids, both young and not so young ... when the cold (and I mean cold!) wind was blowing, the leaves were rattling and there was a definite scent of spookiness in the air ...

Though the weather was wonderful earlier in the day --reaching 70 degrees-- by late afternoon, a strong cold front came whipping through and dropped the temperature by over 30 degrees. We think this dampened some of the trick or treaters' plans, as we only had 55 visitors this year (57 if we count the two dogs who stopped by!). But those who were brave enough to venture out were amply rewarded with treats of candy, toys and pencils ... Our new feature this year -- the coffin of joyful doom -- was popular with the kids, who had to reach into the spooky coffin with a skeleton resting in it, to pull out toy prizes we had been collecting since last year.

As promised, here are the costumes ... in the first shot you can see FuManPhantom (aka IVG) holding forth at the door to help greet (and frighten a good number!) those brave enough to trek up the steps and on to the porch ... Next is her Devildogginess Herself guarding the candy before the kids started arriving. And finally, the scary CrowMan (aka C) shows off his labor of spooky love that took quite some time to assemble. Unfortunately the head is so dark it doesn't show up that well in these pics, but believe me, it's very authentic and creepy! He frightened more than one tonight as he sat in wait for unsuspecting beggars to enter his lair ...

Though we had the usual assortment of kids who threw their costumes together quickly (when will those Scream masks finally go away?), there were some stand outs with some of the kids, most of which seemed to involve Star Wars ... We had a delightful little Jawa with glowing and blinking eyes, as well as our own neighborhood Darth Vader, who arrived in an illuminated Darth suit. A good number of vampires as well ... the usual little princesses and even some toddler cows!

All in all it was a fun night for the gang here (except for the dogs who had to stay in for most of the festivities (4 bounding barkers was too much for our small treating area). But the dogs were also greatly rewarded afterwards with biscuits and beggin strips, so they didn't seem to mind too much. We ghouls later dined on mystery meatballs and cheeses, then watched The Exorcism of Emily Rose, which is actually a pretty good film. Supposedly a true story, it was a more than literate tale that we found appropriate for a cold, windy and definitely spooky night! I hope everyone else's Halloween will be a good one, and we'll treat our visitors here to one more day of images from our haunted house, so do stop by again for more spooky treats tomorrow!