HalloweenBargains.com - Hallo Hallowe'en!

Lucky for you I don't mind sharing. "Hallowe'en" is an old English term that grew from the tradition of children knocking on peoples' doors. "Hallo?" they would say. (It's spelled the wrong way because it took place in England).

Anyway, as you can imagine, treats in England were never THAT good: "There's a good boy! A bit o' kidney pie fer ya, guv'nah." So actually, the original day was called "Hallo-eew".

After many years and millions of kids, it somehow changed to the holiday that we all know and love to get sick over.Having said that, I wanted to remind you that Hallowe'en is on its way once again. This is great news for any guy that gets the order to go to the store and buy the candy.

Why? you ask. Because any guy worth his Old Spice will AUTOMATICALLY buy fifty more chocolate bars than necessary and spend the next two weeks snorking sweets like there's no tomorrow. (And, depending on the state of his arteries, that may well be the case!)

But this spooky event wasn't always so enjoyable to me. Living on the farm in Watford, we had a set number of Real Costumes (3) and a set number of siblings (4). Neither of those numbers changed in my twelve years of active candy gathering.

This meant that a month before-hand, we had to call dibs on whichever costume smelled the best, because the philosophy at our house was this: Hallowe'en comes once a year, so why waste money on new costumes? In fact, why wash the old ones?

Yes, October thirty-first was a day rife with tradition.

There was the traditional garbage bag stored under the stairway containing the traditional costumes:

One Devil costume complete with tail, trident and horned head-piece; one Raggedy Ann costume worn by my mother ten years earlier to win first prize at a local dance and one Pig costume, consisting of a pair of full body underwear with a dozen rubber nipples stapled to them.

There was also the tradition of trying on said costumes and realizing that, after twelve years, the fit was getting to be a little snug. In fact, if I could get my wife into that Devil costume...

Anyways, it didn't actually matter who had the 'real' costumes and who was going as a hobo every year because, without fail, it would be VERY COLD and our mother would make us wear our winter coats OVER the costumes. We ended up looking like a Raggedy Ann Flasher of sorts. The only things really visible were the masks that we wore.

Oh, how we hated those masks.

Oversized plastic faces with eye holes that never matched up to your head, one small hole by the mouth to try and breathe out of AND THE WORLD'S CHEAPEST PIECE OF ELASTIC TRYING TO KEEP THE WHOLE THING STUCK TO YOUR HEAD.

If we weren't so focused on the fact that we were getting candy from everyone in the known world, we would have realized how lame the evening actually was.

And so here we are today, gearing up for another generation to hit the streets. I consider it my job to help my kids prepare so that they don't have the same feelings that I did.

Me:" Okay, guys, what do you want to be: devil, pig or Raggedy Ann?"

My Son: "Dad, we don't even HAVE those costumes! And besides, I want to be a velociraptor."

My Daughter: "Me too!"

My Son: "And the wolfman!"

My Daughter: "Me too! And a princess!"

My Wife: "Honey, why did you buy all this candy? You know we only have six people show up every year."

Me: "I'm just doing my part to make sure that Hallowe'en's not lame this year, especially for me!"