ALL HAIL HALLOWEEN.

Hands down, Halloween is my most favorite holiday. Christmas? Yeah, it's pretty darn good. But HALLOWEEN! Oh, it has no rivals in the holiday world. I anticipate Halloween like a child - planning my costume WEEKS (sometimes months) ahead of time. It's huge fun for me to run here and there around town piecing together the perfect knock-'em-dead ensemble. There is something magical and freeing about dressing in costume, even if just for one night. Have you ever noticed Halloween parties are the most fun of the year? People are friendlier, goofier, funnier. Costumes allow people to let their guards down and be someone else for a while, and that's serious fun. After all, I'm not me, I'm a magnificent lion tamer and you've been a very naughty lion! (Whip it good.) I instictively think others who don't dress up are somehow missing the boat. Who says that just because you pay taxes and go to work every day means that you can't be a chesty nurse for one night?

I have memories of trick-or-treating with my brother when we were little. We would take a pillowcase off of our beds and hit the streets in search of the good houses. We avoided the ones that gave pencils or Sunmaid raisin packets and apples. I don't want yer stinkin' fruit. I want sugary, chocolatey, insulin-overloading, teeth-rotting CANDY. My brother and I would return home with half of a pillowcase full of deliciousness. We'd go to his room and stand in the middle of the room, and dump our respective booties out in the middle of the floor. We'd hover over our candy like pirates over a treasure chest. After grouping and organizing by brand and size, we'd enter into a very complicated barter system. For example, one Butterfinger would be worth two or three snack size M&Ms packs. Snicker bars were really high up. So were Reese's cups and Three Musketeers. The middle of the road were Smarties and Sweet Tarts and Jolly Rancher sticks. The bottom of the barrell were those peanut butter taffy things in the orange and black wax wrappers, and maybe Double Bubble. You could barely trade for anything with those, and it was a bold move to try and get something as good as a Milky Way with them.

After the bartering was done, (this could take hours) I would pour the contents of my winnings into a blue and white speckled melamine mixing bowl. I would stash said bowl under my bed and eat candy for at least a week. I seriously remember eating Halloween candy first thing in the morning - right out of bed. Delish. After about a week or so, the only remnants left would be the bottom-dwellers; candy that had worked it's way out of the wrapper, raisin packs or pennies. (Who gives pennies for Halloween? The same people who turn their porch lights off, that's who.)

Ah, the memories. I just can't let go, and suspect I never will, of the fun and festivity of Halloween. Long live. What are you dressing up as this year?