Halloween Snow and DIY Facepaint

It’s Halloween this Saturday, and you know what means:

Time for the traditional October blizzard.

Apparently.

Living in Colorado after 20 years in Florida is an education everyday, I tell you. This was my backyard at noon today, and the snow has piled even higher since then.

Actually and according to the local news, this is early winter weather even by Colorado standards, which probably makes the locals who know better start worrying about a long and bitter winter, but I have all the zealousness of the newly converted and so find this heavy snow both bizarre and awesome. I grew up in coastal Virigina, where Halloween never meant snow, but it did mean wearing sweatpants under our costumes and kicking through gutters of dead crackly leaves on our way from house to house.

Then, when I was around the age AG is now, the Navy gave my father relocation orders for north Florida. October nights there feel cool in comparison to, say, the 98 degrees and 100% humidity that mark August and September there, but a Halloween in the Florida panhandle is only rarely cold. Even less seasonal: Halloween in south Florida, where I spent six years of the girls’ early childhoods.

See:

Here you can see AG (age 5), the Steadfast Sidekick (age almost-3), and their friend. You’ll notice the Sidekick is wearing a hula girl costume, and by *costume* I mean bathing suit, matching hula skirt, and flip flops.

That’s about all you need for trick-or-treating in the Tampa Bay area. No jacket, no tights under the bathing suit, not even socks.

In Denver, today’s record-breaking blizzard has brought the temperature down to 28 degrees as I write this on a Wednesday afternoon, today is a school snow day, there’s what looks like about a foot and a half of snow covering my backyard, and the forecast says it won’t let up until tomorrow afternoon. Although I am quite sure I will eventually tire of early snow the longer I live in this beautiful state, right now the thought of a white Halloween thrills me.

And I love Halloween.

If traditional face paint scents trigger your/your child’s asthma, try making your own.

Check out these tips for trick-or-treating with an asthmatic child.

Finally, have I mentioned my fixation with jack-o-lanterns yet?