[Photo Credit: Emma Millard, taken my moi, totally candid, I've been waiting for a reason to use it]

Every year as long as I can recall my parents have had a Halloween party. Way before it was the norm in the UK my Dad would bring things back from his business trips to America to decorate the house, we'd all dress up and our family would come over. It started small, youngsters upstairs making a mess of the bedrooms, adults downstairs drinking.. standard. At the time trick or treating was a thing, you could dress up as dracula or a witch.. maybe a pirate and there were long press on nails, fangs and fake blood readily available but it was NOTHING like the entire aisles at the Supermarket now. People didn't have parties but my Mum didn't like trick or treating (glorified begging if I remember correctly) so it was another way to keep us entertained. I remember my Grandma turning up one year in the most horrifying rubber mask and being genuinely scared of her, I remember my Dad drawing chalk tombstones on the garage walls and making punch with things floating in it.. it was all so much fun, as a kid.

As time went on it became bigger and bigger (you can see last year in this vlog) more people came, the decorations were a bit on the scary side for the kids and it was a lot of work. I've known my Dad start decorating more than a week before and it's practically another Christmas for my Mum to cater.. it was a serious business. This year we're skipping it, for a variety of reasons, a couple of which being that Milo didn't like it last year and we have a new puppy who we can't leave/bring yet so since we're obviously main players (ha) they're taking a year off. Part of me was relieved, it had become so huge and when you have kids to look after a party isn't all that fun but today it's sinking in that for the first time in more than 20 years I have no Halloween plans and it's a bit sad. Long standing tradition can sometimes feel like a burden and over time you appreciate them less and less until they're taken away. I've never been super excited about Halloween because I've 'had to' do it but this year is different, I did go to a party last week (see THAT in THIS vlog) so I got that ticked off and because we've moved home and will be IN for the first time we are anticipating our first ever trick or treaters tonight. I want to carve pumpkins, make a bizarre Halloween Ginger Bread House I bought yesterday and give out sweets to neighbouring kids. It will be a different Halloween experience but a change is as good as a rest and next year perhaps the party can return with some minor adjustments to help it find it's way back to it's roots.

I think Christmas will be different this year too but I'll talk about that later, I know lots of you are anti-Christmas before at least December but after tomorrow it will be everything I can do NOT to put up my tree so expect festive flair to creep in after midnight. In the meantime I hope you all have a happy Halloween, however you're celebrating!

Miss BB