Irreconcilable Halloween Differences

I hate Halloween. I loathe scary movies. I don't like gore. I'm disgusted by pumpkin guts. Come to think of it, I don't like the color orange all together. Why, you ask? Near as I can figure, it's my Grandma's fault.

My grandma was a very proud woman. She didn't like any event where you invited someone with the expectation of receiving a present. Birthday parties, wedding receptions, baby showers, and, yes, even Halloween all fell into that category.

My mom is not quite as bad as my grandma was, but she kept some of the Halloween-hatred. She loves Christmas though, so this was her compromise:

On Halloween, we'd go the store and each pick out whatever bag of candy we wanted. We'd then go home, turn off all of the lights, hide in the basement, and watch Christmas movies. After that, playing Christmas music was fair game at our house.

My husband is a Halloween lover. He likes carving pumpkins and trick-or-treating. He likes handing out the candy and eating chili and drinking apple cider. He likes finding costumes for the kids. Worst of all, he thinks that Christmas should not be mentioned at all until after Thanksgiving dinner is consumed. (Isn't it ironic that for our first date, Layne took me to a haunted house? He swears I was so scared that I grabbed his hand. Right. Me, make a move on a first date? I say it was him. It's another of our irreconcilable differences.)

I tried to talk the kids into doing Halloween my way this year. Of course Layne wouldn't hear of it. The kids weren't too keen on it either, but I think it's because they are really excited to wear their Star Wars themed costumes. I told them I'd make a compromise and we could stay home, eat Snickers bars, they could dress up, and we could watch Star Wars. The deal breaker was the pumpkins. They still want to carve the dang things.

I don't see how we can ever really work this out-- I don't think I'm ever going to get my way. I can't wait for Friday to be over...