Amber has always been really into Halloween, for some reason the aesthetic just appeals to her. By far her favorite video for many months has been a Pinkfong video of Halloween songs. She knows all the characters - zombie, skeleton, witch, and so on. So we were pretty excited for her to experience a real Halloween. Last year she was really too small to understand what was going on.

She chose to be a witch for a costume, so we ordered her one. A day or so before Halloween she changed her mind and wanted to be a cat (her costume hadn't arrived yet), so we were worried, but when she saw the witch costume she was totally into it.

We went down to the neighbors for our first trick-or-treat. Then we went into Banks "development" neighborhood. Trick-or-treating is huge down there, a big street party. It took a few runs for her to figure out what was going on, but before long she was running right up to each door to trick-or-treat them, though she never really got the process down. I usually had to ring the bell because they're too high for her. She would usually yell "Trick or Treat" before they even opened the door. The candy bowl was usually front and center, and confronted with the candy, she would usually forget procedure, though if they instructed "take one" or two or three she would always follow instructions. I would have to remind her to say Thank You and Happy Halloween, which she would usually do a few clicks too late.

At one house, they were putting potatoes in the bowl with the candy, which was set out on their driveway as the homeowners watched from chairs in their garage (quite common with so many kids, that people would just be outside giving out the candy, saving wear on their doorbells and doors). Right as Amber approached the bowl, one of the hosts dropped a potato in there. She put her hand on it immediately, then paused and thought about it for a couple seconds, I presume looking at all the brightly-colored candy in the bowl. And then took the potato.

(Edit: I didn't know this, but apparently it's a trend this year, people are offering potatoes, and a surprising number of kids take them for some reason.)

She knows when things are too scary, and stays away from them, but she seems to be pretty circumspect about it - she usually asks me to pick her up. One of her favorite things was a "giant scary clown" that was wandering around, a guy on stilts in a clown costume with scary fangs. I picked her up before we even got too close, and at first she said she wanted to give him a high-five, but then she said he was too scary. But she watched him wide-eyed the whole time. After we got in the car and were headed home she said she wanted to see the giant scary clown again.