October 31st

Happy Halloween!

I love Halloween. My reasons???

1. I love the decorations around the house-makes me smile.

2. I love the crisp, fall-ish smell when you step outside.

3. Candy...need I say more?

4. Watching my nephews 'trade' candy with each other--usually the youngest gets the raw end of the deal because he doesn't know any better!

5. I love the costumes-I remember a particular costume my older sister wore, then I did-it consisted of a plastic costume we put over our clothes and jacket. It had a plastic mask that made our faces sweat. It was a dog costume called "Run Joe Run" based on a cartoon.

(excerpt from Wikipedia explaining it:

"Run, Joe, Run was a Saturday morning television program that aired on NBC from 1974 to 1976. It centered around Joe, a German Shepherd in the military's K-9 Corp., and his master, Sergeant Will Corey (played by Arch Whiting). One day, during training, Joe was falsely accused of attacking his master, a crime for which the dog would be put to sleep as punishment. However, he escaped before being killed and a $200 bounty was put on his head.

Sgt. Corey believed Joe was innocent and also pursued him, hoping to find Joe before the authorities did. While on the run, Joe helped people he never found Joe (although he always came close), was called back to duty. Joe then teamed with a hiker, Josh McCoy (played by Chad States), and continued to help others, all the while still on the run.

Although I don't specificaly remember watching Run, Joe, Run I must have seen it.

6. My mom hated Halloween, it went something like this "A bunch of kids who get dressed

up in costumes then have to be undressed to go to the bathroom, walking around at night in the cold (we lived in Rhode Island), and begging for candy". I see her points and YES, every year one of us had to go to the bathroom after she got us dressed. Yet, every year, she dressed us up and went out trick-or-treating with us.

This year, I won't be with my nephews for trick-or-treating so I will wait for the pictures of them, keeping fingers crossed that they get all treats and no tricks!

Happy Haunting!

The Twelve Weeks of Christmas-Week 4

OK, so I am new to blogging AND new to The Twelve Weeks of Christmas by Red Writing.

Week 4 is "All about the food"

Fruit Basket

Every year growing up the day before Christmas and Thanksgiving, my mother would put a bowl of fruit in a white dish and set it in the center of our dining room table. There was always a wide assortment in the bowl...not that we never had fruit before but for some reason, when the bowl of fruit was out at the holidays, it tasted much better and oh, what a treat! We were allowed to have any fruit any time we wanted to and how great we thought it was!

Nut Bowl

Like the fruit bowl, we always had a nut bowl out during the holidays. I vividly remember that bowl-round with 4 separate compartments in it with a hole in the center for the nutcracker and metal picks to scoop the nuts out of their shells. We always opened our nuts and left the shells on the holiday table cloth and how mad my mom would get!

Christmas Eve Dinner

Dinner Christmas eve was always homemade lasagna and garlic bread. I loved it when my dad slipped pepperoni into the sauce (my mom never added it-she hated it!). We always had garlic bread with it. But the best part was after dinner and before bed, we could pick and open one gift from under the tree! Loved that!!

Christmas Breakfast

We really didn't have Christmas dinner-we always had and still have a Christmas breakfast. We'd go to 7 am mass, then come home and have a big homemade breakfast-my mom always made a Swedish Tea Ring among a lot of other things. We always had an extra special drink-1/2 cranberry juice, 1/2 ginger ale. We used the good china plates and glasses with our last name's initial "R". It was so so special because our good dinnerware only came out on extra special times. We never said grace or even what we were thankful for out loud but I always knew my mom said it to herself-her lips would move ever so slightly before she ate.

I never realized how much our holidays centered around food-especially Christmas. As all 5 of us are older and have our own homes, we still get together at mom and dad's house on Christmas morning for breakfast and the gift exchange. I always want to remember the smells in the house around Christmas and hope when my daughter has her own family, she continues these traditions my parents started.