Over the years we've gone back and forth with Halloween.  For the last 3 or 4 years, we've decided to go a head and celebrate Halloween American style.  When I mean American style, I mean costumes, trick or treating, candy, food, and friends.  Parenting is so hard.  We had convictions about Halloween that at this point in life we no longer have.  We've grown, matured, and learned.  Maybe one day we'll take a different direction but for us this year, we've decided that Halloween is ok.  We try to keep it light hearted and fun with out all the ghoulishness to it.  We invited a number of families over.  The dads take the kids out door to door while the moms answer the door, hand out candy, eat and talk.  I think that is a perfect scenario.  It's been the norm for the last few years. One great thing about our neighborhood is that it's a great place to trick or treat.  Our neighbor counted 170 trick or treaters before they turned off the light at 8:00pm.  We turned ours off at 9:00 pm. Being that it's a great place for trick or treating, we often see people we know come to our house so I have a hot cocoa bar set up and they can come in, grab something warm, visit and go back out.  Isaac decided that he was too old to dress up but when his friends showed up in costumes, he grabbed his reffing uniform, sunglass and a stick.  He was a "blind" referee.  Lona was the mad hatter this year and Job was back to being a Star Wars character.  He was Jobi-wan-Kenobi.