Halloween 2016

Look everyone, I'm a cartoon character!

Yours truly as Mabel Pines of Gravity Falls.

 

(For comparison)
What a cute nerd!

So yep, my costume is a cartoon character and it is not from Steven Universe, which is the most unbelievable thing about me dressing up as a cartoon character.

Mabel is half of a set of twins on the show. Her brother, Dipper, was played by good old Jeaux!

We make a good brother/sister team!

Dipper likes investigating mysteries and Mabel likes being a weirdo and sometimes helping.

 
This is a really cute show, and I've seen every episode exactly once. So I'm not a huge fan, but I am a fan. I haven't done a ton of specific characters in my Halloween repertoire, so this was really fun for me.

I used to go trick-or-treating every year. Well into my thirties. The logistics of doing so have gotten more complicated over the years, so I started just giving up and having a Halloween party, and figuring if I really wanted candy I could buy it myself (not as fun though). I hope I get trick-or-treaters tonight, but in past years I've gotten them very rarely. I do have candy and non-food treats if any little monsters visit me! And if they don't, I'm happy to eat the candy myself. 

I hope this tradition survives into more generations. There's really nothing like trick-or-treating and I don't want it to die. Things are changing, with more risks associated with approaching strangers' houses (our neighbors didn't used to be strangers in the past), and more risks associated with eating food from people you don't know, and more kids with food restrictions and allergies. (Hard to tell if allergies are increasing in frequency in this generation or if it's just that awareness is growing. I could probably look it up but I'm pretty lazy.)

It's weird that so many traditions that incorporated our neighbors have gone down the drain over the years, at least where I live. You really never see caroling or neighborhood celebrations for holidays. We don't know the people we live beside. (Well, I know my upstairs neighbors are buttholes who stomp constantly and are extremely inconsiderate with their various noise, but I do not know their names or their faces.) We've become connected in ways we didn't used to be through the Internet and through other available networking opportunities, but neighbors are less a part of our lives now. Which makes trick-or-treating, when it happens, a really interesting break from the walls we build.

I wonder if anyone would recognize us if Jeaux and I trick-or-treated?