(Scroll past this paragraph as desired…  Again, remember that “Wrapped in Comfort” is on sale at Knitpicks.com and cheaper there right now than the used copies on Amazon; I might have a vested interest in saying so, but hey. Signed and inscribed copies are available as always through Purlescence.  Thank you to so many of you for buying copies these past few days, as well as everybody else who has, and thank you, Stephanie!  I’ve been harlotted!)

These are Nathania’s felted wool pumpkins; I photo’d them, with Kay’s permission, at Purlescence’s knit night tonight.

What a difference a year makes.

Our last winter in New Hampshire, our older children were two and four and terrified of the weird-to-worse-looking people that knocked on the door come Halloween night.  It was unusual enough there for people to knock on the door at all; people in upper New England very seldom dropped by unannounced.  It was a cultural thing, as far as I could tell as a newcomer–but then, it’s true that there was an awful lot of snow in the winter getting in the way.

All my prepping the children beforehand as to what to expect, even the bribes of candy as part of the trick-or-treating deal just didn’t do it for them.  They shrieked and screamed and stayed far from the door and didn’t want me to open it–and they weren’t going out there either, no way.  Mom! Don’t you know what’s OUT there?!

The next year, we were here in California, and even though I again talked to my little ones about Halloween and about playing dress up for it, and remember, don’t forget about that candy part, candy being a highly unusual treat in our household, I worried how they might react this time around.

There was a tall narrow window to peak out of alongside the front door, and back then, people had to come up the walkway past the kitchen windows, so you knew when they were approaching.

My little girl said in great glee to her younger brother, as they craned their heads to try to see down the walkway, “Here come trick-or-treaters! Let’s be scared!”  Pretending to be afraid had magically, at age five, become part of the thrill of pretending for the night to be a witch.