Boo!

With Halloween just two weeks away, America's children are giddy with the excitement about costumes and candy.  (Although let's face it, the costumes are fun but it's really about the candy.)   My kids are old enough that they have to manage their own get ups (and actually one is past the point of trick or treating altogether), a welcome relief from the days when they changed their minds almost hourly, well often enough that I would have to set a deadline beyond which there would be no more runs to the thrift store and dime store, when the glue gun and sewing machine would be off limits.

Meanwhile in the supermarket, it's all candy all the time. Regrettably, I have already eaten more than my fair share of candy corn.

And in the neighborhoods, the displays get ever more elaborate as the years go by.  It used to be that there might be one house on the block that went all out Halloween night by creating a spook house; otherwise, a pumpkin on the front steps pretty much signaled your holiday spirit.  But these days, folks are going all out from the cutesy harvest figures to some genuinely scary stuff.

It all starts out fairly tame.

Even Frankenstein here seems more adorably goofy than frightening.

Still more whimsical than scary.

But then things take a darker turn.

And finally one that would really scare the bejeezus out of some four year old princess or firefighter:

Trick or treat?  At your own peril.