Murray Pagan Rituals

Jeff has a lot of relatives. As in--there are so many of them that you really aren't sure whether that is his sister's kid, his niece's boy, or that's one of the three Nephites. It really doesn't matter because they all live within a 2-mile square radius of each other so sooner or later you are going to pronounce someone's name wrong (or forget it altogether). Due to the fact that a family get-together will involve 18 phone calls from Gae, three food assignments from Karen and a centerpiece display from Jolene--they don't really celebrate real holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. They prefer to stick to the strictly pagan celebrations--like Halloween.

I've never really liked Halloween. When you grow up in the middle of nowhere, Hallow's Eve amounts to putting a winter coat and snow pants over your costume and having your mom drive you around in a brown Ford LTD. It's not exactly as fun as it appears on television. Especially when, after about 30 minutes, you are tired of getting out of the car every half mile for a stale popcorn ball. There was that one year when mom took us to the big city (Idaho Falls) and we went door to door with Val and Kim. Oh, that was really living. We had shopping bags full of treats. It was even warm enough to actually stay outside after dark! That Halloween actually ruined me though, after that I knew what I was missing and it made the whole night even worse.

I digress, so last Friday we went to the annual scare fest. I hadn't tried on the kid's costumes until about an hour before the party. Jack's was too small and I couldn't even get the zipper to go all the way up--fortunately, he was so excited to be a tiger--actually, he was even more excited to take a purse to the party. I made the mistake of calling it a purse, rather than a "candy bag" or something not so weirdo. He was REALLY excited about the purse. Lachlan's giraffe costume was perfect. I'm so glad that I bought the larger size at the last minute. The butt of that giraffe was so funny. I've got some hilarious video of her running and that booty is shifting side to side. I know that it is exactly what my rear looks like when I jog--so it really was the scariest thing of the whole night! Jeff dressed as a safari guide. Both of the kids said that they did not like his hat and that he should take it off and it should "stay home."

Here's some of the party highlights. I should have taken a picture of one of the relatives who dressed as a "hamburger knight" (don't ask me what it was all about)-he had a hamburger costume with a knight helmet and a sword. Jack was terrified and ran from him all night. He also decided that he just wanted to run around in his underwear after about 30 minutes of the tiger outfit. I'm nervous that he won't want to put it on for the real deal--I'll have to start with the brainwashing. Shown below: Claire and Irene dressed up for church and L and dad show off their vampire teeth.

My favorite part of the night is watching the kids eat a donut off of a string. Last year, Lachlan must have eaten a dozen donuts. This year, she was already overdosed by the time we got to that point, but she took one for the team and dry-heaved her way to glory. Jack took a couple of bites, but then decided that he would go back for more pencils. Yeah, pencils. He's got quite a collection. He filled up the front of his onesie with pencils and then told me "put 'em in pocket, mom."