Friday Five: Halloween!

On one of the blogs (REVGALBLOGPALS) I follow, every week they have the Friday Five, five fun and/or interesting questions you can answer. Members of this group blog have fun posting their answers on the blog and reading each others answers, and I'm thinking about officially joining it instead of just peeking in as an outsider (it's for women in ministry who blog, so I think I qualify)

ANYWAY, here is my personal attempt at answering this week's Friday Five, which is about Halloween!

1. How did you celebrate this time of year when you were a child?
Mom would take us out trick or treating, come rain or snow or sleet, or whatever else mother nature had to throw at us. Not sure why dad got out of this annual rite! My costume was usually something Mom or I came up with. I don't remember us making a big deal about it.

2. Do you and/or your family “celebrate” Halloween? Why or why not? And if you do, has it changed from what you used to do?
Either my husband or I (or both of us) take Lil' Princess out trick or treating for a short time. She can't handle being out too long, which is fine with us. Then we go home, give her a little of the candy, and hide the rest. The biggest part of the evening is the getting dressed up and getting her picture taken (she's such a girly-girl!) We don't get bent out of shape about Halloween. I've always agreed with Luther that it's good for us to thumb our noses at the devil (well, Luther actually was a little more crude about it, he said we should fart at Satan!) Before our little girl came along, we would spend the night handing out candy.

2. Candy apples: Do you prefer red cinnamon or caramel covered? Or something else?
Caramel covered, absolutely! Mmmmmm.

3. Pumpkins: Do you make Jack O’ Lanterns? Any ideas of what else to do with them?
Thus far we have painted faces on our pumpkins, but when my paranoid husband feels that our girl is old enough, we will carve our pumpkins. We set them out on the front step until they get snowed on, then we throw them in the back yard, and then we rediscover them sometime the next spring when they're nice and squishy and gross. (I can just hear my dad sighing and shaking his head at me)

4. Do you decorate your home for fall or Halloween? If so, what do you do? Bonus points for pictures.
I try to decorate with a few touches here and there, nothing overboard (not like Christmas!) I don't have a lot of autumn or Halloween decorations, much to my husband's relief.

5. Do you like pretending to be something different? Does a costume bring our an alternate personality?Bonus: Share your favorite recipe for an autumn food, particularly apple or pumpkin ones.
I haven't dressed up in YEARS. I loved it when I was a little girl. In college, I was known as The Goddess of the Rock. I think what makes it fun is that it allows you to step outside of yourself and try something new on for size. Since I put on the pastor hat, I haven't let myself try anything else on. Is that sad, or just to be expected? I don't have a particularly wonderful recipe for autumn, especially since my idea of baking involves buying a premade pie crust, a can of pumpkin pie filling, and a can of ReddiWhip! Mmmmmm....