Happy Halloween!!

I love Halloween. I think it might be my favorite holiday. Part of that is that I can wear my cool spider earrings and not get whacked up alongside the head with a newspaper. Man, that hurt. Part of it is that a lot of the things that I like are cool for one day - bats and spiders and snakes, oh my! and spooky old houses, and creepy trees and the crackling of leaves underfoot. I like that for one night a year, we dress our children up and send them off into the night to demand candy from strangers. It's the one time of year that all of my little spider friends can spin their webs in my corners and no one comments on it, or threatens to hoover them up.

One of the reasons I have always been so fond of it doesn't really apply as much anymore. No one used to be that into it. When did it get so commercial?!? I don't remember if I've ranted here before about those inflatable lawn decorations, but I don't like 'em. Well, I am kinda fascinated by the snowglobe ones with the snow flying around inside. But aside from those... one of my neighbors goes crazy EVERY freakin' holiday with those things. And I don't care what the stores tell you, planting seven foot tall, manical Easter bunnies in your yard is creepy not festive. But I digress. As usual. For Halloween, this neighbor has an assortment of inflatables in his yard. No, not that kind. Please. It's a family oriented neighborhood, although that would be really funny... Where was I? Right. Halloween decorations. This is not a large yard we're talking about here. But, he has a Frankenstein, the stack o'pumpkins with ghosts, new this year - a large black cat archway over the sidewalk, a witch, and the one that really freaks me out - the vampire Pooh. This is just wrong. OMG - I just searched for an image and found that you can get a whole Disney vampire family. I am so disturbed right now. The wonderful thing about Tiggers is that they vant to suck your blood?!? Eek. That's just not right.

This is totally not where I wanted to go with this post. Can you tell that I'm on my third pot of coffee? No, I'm sure not. Actually, you now have a pretty good idea of what trying to hold a conversation with me is like. ZOOOMMMMMMM - Let's go here! No here! No there! *blink* Who're you? I am a treat, let me tell you.

Now, what the hell was I *going* to babble about... Ooh, right. Cookies. Part of my problem today is that I'm sleepy 'cause I was up half the night on a wild cookie decorating tear. I think I've mentioned before my occasional Martha Stewart tendancies. I got in a mood last night and just went to town. Thanks to the Wilton Tent Sale (oh, how I love thee!), I have the equipment to go nuts for damn near any special occasion ever. My original plan was these cool cookies that you pipe out to make spider webs, but the dough was too stiff to get through a pastry bag, so I turned it into cut-out cookies instead. I raided my supply of cut-outs for a bat, a cat, a ghost and a pumpkin. Then I frosted them, and then I went bug nuts on the sprinkles then I went back and added details with more frosting.

My ghosties were white, with sparkly white sugar, and black eyes and mouths. My bats were purple, with sparkly purple sugar and red eyes. I turned the pumpkins in Jack O'Lanterns with green stems and black eyes, noses and mouths - complete with ragged teeth. And my cats were black with green eyes and white fangs. Ooh, my bats had fangs too. Wow, those were a pain. Did you know that it takes FOREVER to make little bat and cat fangs with white frosting and a toothpick? And teeth on a pumpkin... *eye roll* What was I thinking?

Once the icing dried, I arranged them festively on a tray and went and fell into bed. Here's the sad part, which I was expecting: They didn't make it 'till lunch. The office hoard descended like the sugar-loving buzzards that they are and there weren't even any crumbs left. Hell, I'm lucky to have kept all ten fingers. And I wasn't awake enough last night to take a picture so no evidence exists that they ever happened. Well, except for the pile of cookie sheets waiting for me to go scrub them.

Actually, there is some evidence. Completely without meaning to, I managed to wrap a trick into my treats. The black sugar that I used for the cats? It's really cool. And, as an added bonus, it turns your mouth a dark purple when you eat a cookie, oh say like a cat shaped one. *smirk* So, there are people running around here looking like children, with dark purple lips, teeth and tongues. And since I used the sprinkles to make the icing black for the details on the ghosts and the pumpkins, no one really got off color free. Tee hee.

Oh, my picture is from here. I've never tried to use power tools on a pumpkin before! Brilliant! Next year, my pretties... I'm firing up the sawzall! Bwahahahahahaha! Spend a few minutes on their site - this guy is a hoot. Must remember this next year. Must write a memo to myself to remember this next year. Wonder where I put my post-its. Hmm. Off to search. Later!