Halloween - Office Style

How cool is it that Halloween is on a Friday night this year?
Remember when you were a kid, all dressed up, usually too hot or too cold depending on the weather and your costume? Crashing from a sugar coma at around 9:30 p.m., clutching your "better" candy bars to keep them away from your siblings or your mother?

I love Halloween.

I loved it more as a young mom, with the toddlers or the school aged kids all excited, dressed up and ready to trick or treat, my biggest worry was who was going to hand out candy at our house while I walked around the block with the kids.

We used to decorate our house big time. Started out small, with some cardboard skeleton and Frankenstein figures I used to tape to the door in the kitchen. My small children excited by the decor, but scared to go into the kitchen after dinner, because "Skelly or Frankie" would get them. Ah, those were the days. As my kids grew, so did the decorations. We carved pumpkins, natch, but one year we used 2" thick Styrofoam insulation sheets to create life-sized tombstones and made a really cool graveyard in our front yard - Complete with piled leaves to appear as if someone was buried fresh under the mound. We re-used it, year after year, and come one hallowed night, years later, my teen-aged son and a friend hid under the leaves jumping out to scare the smaller kids right out of the yard. Booooo! More candy for us.

Now, without the kids I have a hard time getting into the fun. But I try, oh, yes I have. The first year, sans kids at home, I really decorated the outside of our new home. Had skulls placed over our landscape lights and my husband created a large spider's web over the front porch. Rats lined up on our railing, and I got some dry ice from our lab at work and made a "brew" in a black cauldron on the front porch. When trick or treating began, I played this Halloween tape of scary sounds (complete with a woman moaning, but we won't get into that...) The kids in our neighborhood were too young to enjoy it, too scared to approach the porch for the huge bowls of candy I had bought to pass out. I gained ten pounds eating that candy.

Now this year, I'm too tired from working and getting caught up from my trip to even decorate. My co-workers are planning a pot luck luncheon and planning on dressing up for the day at the medical center. I hadn't planned on it this year. I've been taunted by them all week. The staff knows what a ghoul I usually am, planning my costume, decorating the office. I'm too pooped. Finally today, I decided to go to the local store to see what I could find to make a last minute costume, and to participate even marginally.

I walked out with a tiny bag - and a terrific idea. This is what I bought. I normally wear a suit to work. This year, I'll be a man. Perfect.
Hope I can still snag a Three Musketeers Bar or two.