One of our favorite shows is Nightmare Before Christmas. The two little boys love it. Okay, I love it too. Just enough scary—yet not too threatening. We love the opening song, This is Halloween—or if you’re a 4 year-old, This is Hoddaween.After the show Ryan creeps around the house—claws in the air—and sings it just like that… “This is Hoddaween. This is Hoddaween, Hoddaween Hoddaween.”
Last Tuesday night the Young Men and Young Women in our ward put on a Halloween party for all the little kids in the neighborhood. There was station after station of fun games and candy prizes. Most of the neighborhood showed up and all the kids were in costumes. Before we arrived, Lori dug into an old box and came up with two perfect little cowboy costumes—made 13 years ago in Pennsylvania for Jason and Connor. Complete with boots, chaps, western shirts, vests, bandanas and 6-shooters.They fit Ryan and Tanner perfectly.
I remember when she carefully sewed them by hand. Material spread out on the floor, snippets of cloth strewn around.
I was in graduate school then and we had to make every dollar last. We looked forward to a day when I would have a job and we’d own our own home.But, looking back, we had everything we needed. Two feet to take walks down lanes of fireflies, bicycles with child seats to carry us around town, a few dollars for ice cream cones, and two little cowboys who stepped onto Norman Rockwell-like porches, rang the doorbells and shouted, "TRICK OR TREATIN’!"
We carved pumpkins tonight and those memories came flooding back.Yeah. This is Hoddaween.
