Let me tell you why I hate Halloween...

The Offenders

It's not so much the candy part. Any holiday that involves eating, I am generally in favor of. But with Halloween, it comes with stipulations. And I am usually skeptical of anything that requires action on my part.

When you have children, they want to trick or treat. I enjoyed this as a child, carrying my sacks of candy home, munching happily along the way. Until I DID get home, and my parents confiscated it to search for razor blades in apples and suspicious tampering of wrappers. I don't think I ever met anyone that found an actual razor blade in a piece of fruit, but this was the guise my parents operated under. The next day, the candy had vanished in to a lazy susan, which was transported by armored car to my fathers work....never to be seen or heard from again.

When I had kids, the costumes became more expensive and the quality of loot went waaaayyy down. It becomes an annual fight to even choose a costume. After we spend an entire weekend looking at Walmart, Target, the PX and finally landing at the over-priced seasonal costume store...looking at EVERY single costume...Just when I am about to keel over from exhaustion...my sons choose the same costume:

Last year, the little hooligans got me by telling me that their friend's mom wanted me to go with her to take the boys trick or treating. So I showed up at the house, where she told me it was wonderful that I said I would take HER THREE children trick or treating so she could stay at home and hand out candy!!! So I was stuck alone, taking 5 children around the neighborhood while she stayed in her toasty house. I bet she ate all the candy herself after we left. Kicked back with a glass of wine, and enjoyed the quiet.

Thats what I would've done.

So this year, we have bribed the kids to go have dinner and ice cream at Friendly's, or as I call it "BFF Friendly's." No trick or treating. Don't come to my house! "Keep on knockin', but you can't come in!"

Countdown to KP Duty

So, Andy comes home last night and tells me we are having 13-15 people over for Thanksgiving.

While this is not a new feat to tackle, I had hoped to keep our guestlist to a minimum number of single soldiers this year. I was thinking, 3 or 4. Instead, he invited ALL of the single soldiers and even a few couples. I am not a mean person, but I don't have room for all of these people. All night long, I find myself wondering "would it be wrong to make my kids, my parents or the soldiers eat in the other room?"

After I had my 5-minute freakout...I realized this is manageable. After the first several times you host large groupings of men in their late teens/early twenties and you see how much they eat, you don't feeling guilty handing out assignments as to what they can bring with them. Married couples have cooking facilities, so they are more than capable of providing some sort of side dish. Always give your husband the menu so he can relay what you are already making, dodging the awkwardness of "oh, ANOTHER jello mold!" (Okay, so no one makes jello molds anymore, but you get the idea.) Single soldiers can bring the rolls, the pies, the drinks...things that don't require cooking and that they can pick up at the store.

Another word to the wise, unless you want these people at your house for the next 24 hours, plan to eat around 1 or 2pm. Army guys have a tendency to like to drink beer, and before you know it, they are playing poker or watching football or napping while you trying to tame the carnage that is left. One New Years Eve, we had invited a couple over (my first time meeting them) and not only did she leave her drunk husband at my house for the night....she came back the next day with bags full of groceries, let herself in, cooked breakfast in MY kitchen while I was asleep, and proceeded to stay the entire next day until about 10pm!!! She didn't even bring her husband a change of clothes! I will never invite these people over again because I don't know if they will ever leave.

Buy yourself a bottle of wine and save it for after the dishes. Or better yet, put your feet up and enjoy a glass while your husband leads the platoon in KP duty.