Warm weather is forecast for Halloween. It’s been an unseasonably warm October, but at least Thursday’s balmy weather will be nice for the kids.
I have to admit I don’t remember what the weather was like on Halloween when I was a kid. It was the furthest thing from my mind. I was too excited about getting to wear my costume and collecting more candy than I could possibly eat.
Mom’s photos are the only clues I have to the chilly Halloween temperatures of my youth. The year I was four I went as Wonder Woman in a costume that consisted of Underoos worn over my clothes and some construction paper accessories. (For those who are too young to remember Underoos these were underwear sets for kids that were made to look like the costumes of superheroes and other pop culture characters. They were traditionally meant to be worn under your clothes. Anyway, a few years after this Madonna would make waves wearing some underwear on the outside of her clothes. So, I guess with Mom and Dad’s help, I was quite the trendsetter.) Somewhere in Mom’s cache of pictures is one of me bundled up in a winter jacket with little bits of my Wonder Woman costume peaking out. Maybe my parents had some misgivings about the underwear costume, or maybe it really was chilly that Halloween.
For a number of years when I was an adult I lived in the Poconos. The first Halloween I was there I gave out fun size Milky Way bars. One summer day I was in my driveway when I overheard two kids walking down the road. “That’s the house that gives out Milky Ways on Halloween,” one kid said. I realized I had locked myself in to buying Milky Ways for Halloween forevermore, and I was okay with that.
Halloween at the top of a mountain in the Poconos was always reliably cold. Many times there was already snow on the ground. Usually it was only a hat, a wig or some face paint to give you a clue as to what costume was hidden beneath the puffy winter jackets as the trick-or-treaters marched up and down driveways in their snow boots. If the kids were lucky they had an adult willing to drive them from house to house in a heated car.
Out here in the country where no sidewalk lines our 45 mile-per-hour road there are no trick-or-treaters—warm weather or no. We have not stocked up on candy for the big day so if any show up they’re bound to be disappointed when the best we can offer them is a granola bar.
Between the warm weather and the lack of trick-or-treaters it’s difficult to get into the Halloween spirit. Maybe I should have picked up fun size Milky Ways that we would be forced to eat ourselves when no little costumed kids showed up on our doorstep. I think perhaps I will bake up a batch of pumpkin spice cookies so we have some treats to enjoy on Halloween night.
I hope your Halloween is all treats and no tricks!
— Alissa
Weekly Inspiration
What I’m Reading: Eva Moves the Furniture by Margot Livesy
What I’m Watching: Hit Man
What I’m Listening to: “Try a Little Tenderness” by Otis Redding
Find out more about my books at alissagrosso.com
Find out more about my digital art at alissacarin.com
My apologies for the typos and such this post is almost certainly riddled with.
Creativity and Contentment 
5 responses to “That Time My Parents Sent Me Trick-or-Treating in My Underwear and Other Halloween Memories”
It sure ain’t like when I was a kid. This trunk or treat craze has me tempted to write a tong-in-cheek horror tale about some ghouls who misunderstand and try to fill their trunk with tasty little treaters.
That sounds like a killer idea for a story, if you ask me!
I remember that costume. You were so cute! We have no trick or treaters here either, but we do have LOTS of candy due to going to Costco with your Dad just before Halloween!🙄🍫
Ha ha!
Ah the joy of living in the north / Midwest during the fall time. I miss those days. People here in Texas will never understand the agony of wearing a costume under a coat and gloves and no one gets to see it.