Aging out of Halloween

In late October, I'm supposed to do a Halloween post, where I show you all our awesome decorations and my child's cute costume. Thanks to a care package from Grandma, we do have a few decorations. There are three paper bats in various places around the living room, and some Halloween stickers on the window. It is Festive! (Thank you, Grandma!)

But alas, Reader, there is no costume photo this year. Jonathan refuses to go trick-or-treating.

What? You say. But there is free candy!?

Yes, Reader. Yes, I know.

Jonathan has decided that now that he is in middle school, he is too old for free candy.

What!?

Reader, he is only 11. No one will be upset by an 11-year-old asking for candy. No one. And yet he will not go. And as a responsible parent, I must pick my battles. Do I fight this, or save my parental wrath for the bathroom cleaning?

I don't know, Reader. I honestly don't know. Because I can clean the bathroom for him. But the neighbors won't give me candy if I go trick-or-treating. And this would be our last year of it anyway, since Halloween is not a big deal in Australia. (My American friend told me that last year, she stopped costume-wearing people on the street and told them that she liked Halloween, too. And please come visit her house to take candy! And they did not come.)

Sighs and sadness. It is the end of an era. The era in which the parents tackle the returning trick-or-treater and take all the Butterfingers and Starbursts and hide them. From now on, we only get what we buy at the grocery store. Woe and sadness and woe.

Since there is not much candy in our future, I will show you instead some photos.

Reader, it is autumn.

They really do autumn really well in this part of the world. The leaves are spectacular! Magnificent! That first photo above was just the parking lot of an ice skating rink off the highway. And it is not in any way color-enhanced.

The woods are turning colors all at once. Orange and yellow and red. This was my walk home from church on Sunday.

And this.

And this.

Then Tuesday morning, Tim and I went for a long walk beside the canal. And everything was yellow and orange and it looked like this.

Only brighter and longer -- for over an hour of walking.

It is more than I expected, Reader. I had been told that autumn was beautiful, but all at once? For weeks at a time? Red and orange and yellow and green and gray? It is more than I hoped for. It is truly beautiful.

In the West, there are trees, and they are pretty, but they are spaced apart carefully by a gardener. Life is not cut into the woods like it is here.

Tim thinks it is lovely, too, but he says he is tired of all the leaf blowing outside his office every day. See? Every silver cloud has its dark lining.