Tag Archives: Trick or treat

Don’t Pull Down My Underwear

“Trick Or Treat, Give Me Something Good To Eat” was supposed to happen today.  But Sandy happened instead.  She shut down everything here for the past two days.  Frankenstorm apparently wanted something BAD to eat.

The lyrics to that song end “…if you don’t, I don’t care.  I’ll pull down your underwear.”  I realize I didn’t give something good to eat.  Yet.  But I do care.  So please don’t pull down my underwear.  I vote for pantsing Sandy instead.

The song has another verse that ends “…not too big, not too small.  Just the size of Montreal.”  The piles of food in my living room are pretty much the size of Montreal!  The generous donations and words of encouragement I received have been nothing short of incredible.  I just love living in a community that is so wonderfully caring of those less fortunate!  I have Mount Royal right in my living room (That’s a mountain in Montreal.  I Googled it…don’t overestimate my knowledge of geography.).

Notice the guard cat, Mushu.  I gave strict orders to keep all kids away from the donations.  He and Bob B. McKitty take shifts and both look pretty ferocious with their glowing eyes.

In case anyone makes it past the cats, there is back-up security.  The hand has a motion sensor that triggers the fingers to wiggle.  It is jointed just like a real hand so it actually looks like it is trying to grab you.  Ain’t nobody goin’ near the food with that freaky thing around!

I must admit I’m bummed about coming up with Plan B Plan C Plan D for this event.  I’m not looking forward to figuring out how to incorporate a “trick or treat” idea into a post-Halloween event.  It may not be possible to reschedule immediately, so it may be closer to Thanksgiving than Halloween by the time it is held. Leave it to me to schedule an outdoor, community-wide event on the same day as the storm of the century.

I thought of referring to it Thanksgivoween, but my kids kept re-phrasing that to Thanksgivoweenie.  But hey, maybe I could serve turkey hot dogs and just run with that idea!  

I guess I’ll just follow the lead of retail stores and overlap holidays.

Photo: www.toilette-humor.com

It blows when things don’t work out as planned, but as long as you remember what is important, you can always weather the storm.  The treats WILL get to the children that need them, regardless of whether they are wearing costumes and saying “trick-or-treat” or if they are wearing turkey feathers and saying “I want to gobble up some treats!”  How they get the food isn’t what is important.  THAT they get the food is.

But I’m still mad at Sandy.  ________________________________________________

Many prayers go out to everyone that had much more than a trick-or-treat event ruined by Sandy.  Way too many people were not fortunate enough to avoid the havoc she wreaked.

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(I promise to try to start using the real camera instead of my crappy quality cell phone.  Try being the key word.)

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Give Me Something Good To Eat

 

Trick Or Treat, Give Me Something Good To Eat will take place a week from today!

Now I just cross my fingers that it all comes together ok.  In other words, I will worry incessantly that it won’t.

As soon as I pressed send for the sign-up genius, I realized just how many people will need to sign up to get enough items.  It’s a scary number. Even if the only attendees are the children that will already be at an after school activity at the school where it is being held.  Eek.

I fear that I won’t hear back about a corporate donation from Walmart.  It would need to be approved in a few days.  Nothing in the corporate world takes a few days.  Yikes.

I panicked when I realized that AOL will no longer allow me to send emails to my entire community distribution list without labeling me a spammer so I’m not able to reach out to as many people as I had hoped.

I’m apprehensive about finding enough volunteers to decorate their cars/tables and hand out treats in the middle of the week, at a hectic time of day.  It made sense to correlate the event with the other activity at the school since so many children we are trying to help will already be there, but it is a nightmare time of day – even for me.

I feel trepidation over not knowing how many children will show up.  My worst fear is seeing little faces holding out a bag and telling them we are out of food!  “Sorry little one, you get a trick.  We are out of treats.”  That would be more awful than the worst horror movie ever.

I guess Halloween really CAN be a terrifying holiday.  And not just because of the monsters.

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http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C084CADAA28A57-trick

Hoping the only scary part of this event is the costumes and decorations! 🙂

 

 

 

Trick or Treat, Don’t Smell My Feet

I couldn’t sleep last night because of thinking about my “game plan.” Those that know me know I am quite obsessed with “special occasions” like birthdays and holidays.  I believe that a kids’ most vivid memories usually involve those special times (at least mine do) so I think it is important that they be as special as possible!

Those special occasions are a big part of the “Chance” ideas I have.  “Blow Out The Candles” was my initial idea…for birthdays, obviously.  Every child should be able to have a birthday cake and gift (and ideally a party!).  I’ve had my Halloween idea, “Trick or Treat, Give Me Something Good To Eat” in my mind for a couple of weeks but kept thinking it was too much to try to take on right now.  Just like I’ve been doing for the past 10 years!

The “I can’t” thoughts were taking over, as usual.  But then I realized I was making it about me.  I didn’t know if I’d have time to do all the work that would be required to do this.  I didn’t want to be embarrassed if it wasn’t successful.  I didn’t want to risk looking like a failure.  I, I, I.  Me, me, me.

But it isn’t about me!  It is about helping.  It is about trying.  It is about something I feel compelled to do.  Plus, I realized I don’t have to do this alone.  I can ask for help!  This morning we contacted our church for some guidance on how to get the ball rolling.  And I now have a whole BLOG full of help.  I’ve spent 10 years saying “I’ll do it tomorrow or next week or next year.”  Time to just do it now.

Yes, I know you are thinking “2 weeks Angela??”  I’m thinking that too.  But I work best under pressure.  OK, not really.  But that sounds better than saying I’m a procrastinator.

“Give me something good to eat” will combine trick or treating and a fun food drive of sorts.

Kids love trick or treating on Halloween.  Some kids (many more than you think!) don’t have enough food to eat on a regular basis (I recently saw it referred to as “food insecurity” or not having enough money to buy a sufficient amount of food).

Photo: pinterest.com

My hope is to set up in the parking lot of a local school (that has a shockingly high percentage of children living with food insecurity!) and have people set up a decorated table (or the back of their car or simply just stand there with a bucket!) on the Sunday before Halloween. The kids will go from table to table to table just like trick or treating but will get fun snack-type items (such as granola bars, mini boxes of cereal, fruit cups, etc) instead of candy.  Snack foods that may be the only food in their house.  Ideally I’d like to also have a costume collection so the kids can pick out something to wear on Halloween!

I’m not sure HOW to do this but I decided that if I don’t do anything, no one will be helped.  If I try to do something, worst case scenario is no one will be helped.  But best case is that a lot of people – a lot of KIDS – will be helped.

It could turn out that my family is standing alone in a parking lot with a bucket of food and no one to give it to.  Or my family could be standing alone in a parking lot giving out a bucket of food to a few people.  Or my family could be standing with a bunch of families from the community giving out buckets of food to a line of people.  Or a bunch of families from a bunch of communities all over the place could be standing in a bunch of parking lots giving out buckets of food to a bunch of lines of people.  You just never know

Regardless, trying to do something will never have a worse outcome than doing nothing.  And now that I have a blog as my “voice,” I feel I must at least try.  I know there are others out there that want to help but don’t know how.  I just know it!

More information to come.  I probably didn’t explain this very well because I typed this post very quickly.  I type fast when I’m excited…and scared.  But I wanted to get something posted before I had a chance to back out.  Once it’s in writing, there’s no turning back, right??

This all depends on finding a place to hold this and being able to contact the right people in the short timeframe.  So stay tuned.  If it isn’t possible for this year, I will try not to be disappointed.  I will try to look at it as having a year to plan.  (And then I will probably be sending out information 2 weeks before…again.)

For now, I need you!!!  Add a comment with your ideas!  Think about how you would want to be involved.  Would you want to hand out treats?  Would you want to donate treats for someone else to hand out?  Do you have costumes your kids have outgrown?  Could you help spread the word to others you think would want to help (or need to be helped)?  My email address is angelamcqn@aol.com if you don’t have a WordPress account (you need one to leave a comment here).  Or you can message me your input at www.facebook.com/Momopolize or www.twitter.com/Momopolize.  (I just figured out yesterday that you can send messages on Twitter. I am waaaaay behind the times.)

And yes, I do realize the entire song is…

“Trick or Treat.  Smell my feet.  Give me something good to eat.  If you don’t, I don’t care.  I’ll pull down your underwear.”

I assure you there will be no feet smelling or underwear pulling.