I looked over at my daughter the other night and was surprised to see that she is 15 years old and 5' 6" tall. She was curled up in the big blue chair, IM-ing her friends, arranging their Trick or Treating plans.
A day or two later it occurred to me that 15 years old and 5' 6" tall is a tad too old and a mite too tall to be going Trick or Treating.
I always thought it was lame when the high school kids came around begging for candy. Especially the ones who carried their costumes. "See, we have costumes" said some boy who gestured with his jumbo-sized candy bag at the sheet hanging over his other arm, while some girl nodded, pointing at her cat-ear headband. Lame. "Shouldn't you be studying for your SATs or something?" I asked, but I still gave them candy.
Oops. Time flies and now I know when someone is too old to go Trick or Treating. It is when they are old enough to make all the arrangements themselves. Despite the creative costumes of my daughter and her pals, next year they'll be driving from house to house, which definitely doesn't sound quite right.
I'm sure you are all astounded that it took me so long to figure this out, but I've had my distractions. In the middle school years, we had Taiwanese foreign students visiting who needed to experience Halloween. There was also the World Series to follow the last few years. And this year, between innings, I've been spending all my spare bandwidth figuring out Propositions 30 and 38.
But now, four days before Halloween, I've decided I'd feel like the Most Mean Mom on the Planet if I told my daughter not to go. Once again, my cohorts at Lady Circuit, the little gym around the corner, have come to my rescue. "Have them Trick or Treat for UNICEF", suggested a teacher on the next treadmill. The next day she brought me three UNICEF collection boxes. I've discovered the kids can take their donations to the Coinstar machine at Safeway and direct the money to UNICEF.
So just in case any of you have also been distracted by presidential debates, property tax bills, and what's for dinner, here's the UNICEF website: http://youth.unicefusa.org/trickortreat/
And next year, I'll gently suggest my daughter have a few friends over to give out candy to the neighborhood kids -- the ones under 5 feet tall.
