Halloween Post Script

As an adult, there are few better places to celebrate Halloween than New York City. 

The available activities are incredibly diverse and there's usually something to cater to every type of personality.  Over the course of the evening, you can watch the amazing puppets and costumed freaks at the Village Halloween Parade, run the Spooky Costume Race at Grand Central, attend the Procession of Ghouls at St. John the Divine, take in a scary book reading at the NY Public Library, or take a quick visit to the world's scariest Haunted House.

However, as a little kid, Halloween in the city is even better!  None of this walking from house to house in order to go trick-or-treating.  Hell, that would take forever!

Back in the day when I would go trick-or-treating, my friends and I would draw up strategic plans the night before.  We'd figure out who lived in the biggest apartment building and then we'd map out our route.  Our prime objective was to find a building that housed over 250-300 units.

In NYC, you can't just go around and knock on random doors.  You might end up waking up a serial killer or running into an underground meth lab.  No, there's a certain system that's evolved over the years.  Usually, there are two ways to figure out who in the building is welcoming trick-or-treaters and giving out candy.  People either put a little pumpkin sticker on their door or there would be a master list in the building lobby stating each unit that would be doling out goodies that night. Normally, we'd start on the top floor and work our way down the building.  On a good night, we'd EACH haul in several enormous shopping bags of candy within an hour.  Man, sometimes that candy lasted me for a whole year. 

These days, as New York has become more gentrified, various neighborhoods around the city close off their streets so families can safely walk around and collect candy from various shopkeepers.  Our neighborhood in Tribeca has become one of the more common areas for kids to trick-or-treat so it's always a great place to check out kids in their costumes.  Since the Peanut is still a little too young, we thought we'd play it mellow and just go over to a friend's restaurant and watch people walk by. 

Of course, we had to dress Peanut in costume.  And due to her undying love for all things Elmo, we bought her a cute little Elmo costume, thinking that she'd absolutely love it.  As usual, we couldn't have been more wrong. 

The Elmo costume freaked the crap out of her and she wanted no part of it.  Total and utter meltdown ensued.  I'm talking tears, screams, wails and kicks. 

Perhaps it was the shock of seeing an amorphously hollow Elmo with both his skin and head peeled off?  Maybe she was scared because whatever sucked the skeletal corpus out of Elmo might do the same to her? 

Personally, I like to think that the idea of putting on an Elmo costume raised too many existential questions in her tiny little head.  Who am I?  Am I Elmo?  Are Elmo and I a singular being?  Where do I end and where does Elmo begin?  How did I enter this world? 

Anyway, it's a good thing that my brilliant and beautiful wife suspected this might happen and bought a cheap back-up costume...

Angry Fairy!

 

Comments

[BossLady]

I should have given her a faux-hawk and carried her around as Maddox Jolie. And you should have put on a blonde wig and carried around a little black baby named David.

[MetroDad]

Better idea. Since Peanut's not chipping in for any of the household expenses, we should have given her a faux-hawk and RENTED her out for the evening as a Maddox Jolie costume accessory.

Damn, I should have thought about it earlier! Oh well...always next year.

[Waya]

You guys are too funny! I guess it's never boring at Casa MetroDad. She's a perfect angel fairy!

[Jonathon]

If Tickle Me Elmo won't shut up in a forrest and no one's there to hear it...

Angry fairy is the cutest thing ever. While, admittedly, I wanted a sinister little Halloween costume, I'm glad we went with cute too.

Happy Halloween, dude.

[MetroDad]

Here's a funny story for you, Jonathan.

One of the little girls in our building DID dress as Tickle Me Elmo. Turns out she went to a party with a bunch of younger kids and they all totally jumped her because they thought she really WAS Elmo! Needless to say, the girl was a little freaked out.

Perhaps we saved Peanut from some psychological trauma by NOT dressing her as Elmo.

[JJ Daddy-O]

Yes, suburban kids will never know the pleasure and efficiency of the high-rise Halloween.
The building I grew up in had 27 floors and 190 apartments. Take the elevator to the top and work your way down to the bottom. Climate controlled! No rain-outs! Sometimes we just got tired hauling our loot around.

[Mama Nabi]

Good tip, Metrodad - PN and I were just saying how we should let her be Elmo next year - will make sure we have a back-up in case she reacts as Peanut did. Haha, Bosslady's too funny, Maddox Jolie... wait, hmmm, renting her out, now there's an idea! Angry fairies rock! So did she sprinkle some fairy dust on people?

[Leora]

Thanks for telling us what it likes to go trick or treating in NYC. I actually never thought about it before. How interesting!

[Anne Glamore]

The doodle-bops on her head are the cutest part of the whole costume. None of my boys would ever wear anntenae, or fairy ears, or whatever the hell they are.

[honglien123]

Angry fairy is so much better than the regular fairies. That said, welcome to the fairy/princess phase. It took all my powers of subtle persuasion to get the Little Goose to consider something other than princess. See that's the trick, to get them to love it before you buy it.

Cool description of NYC trick or treating btw, when I lived in an apartment building, no one came to our door! =( It's like in Oakland, apartment dwellers get a free pass on passing out candy.

[-hanh-]

I had to laugh at "Am I Elmo?" Angry Fairy fits well in NYC!!

[Patch]

Halloween is so much better with kids, even if you have to deal with an occasional melt down. Salud!

[BD]

Years ago when we lived in the Bronx, we used to head over to Woodlawn Cemetary for their scary mystery tours. Do they still do that?

[KC]

Come to think of it, that IS pretty scary, putting on Elmo's hollowed-out fur. That Peanut is a wise one.

My childhood Halloweens were spent freezing my arse off walking door to door in the suburbs for maybe one pillowcase of loot. Apartment buildings sound like the way to go.

[Deanna]

I laughed out loud at the existential Elmo questions. That totally brightened my morning! The fairy costume is a cute, neat save by the Boss Lady. And the Peanut, as usual, is too freakin' adorable.

[Meg]

BossLady's comment made me spit out my coffee.

[Melissa]

Maddox Jolie? Too freaking funny. You know one day she'll be in therapy talking about you two.

Oh my dad tried to make me be Elmo one year and my mom made me be some mohawked boy the next. And all I wanted to be was a princess like all the other little girls. Oh yes, tons of therapy. ;)

She made an adorable angel.

[Leeny]

Aw, Peanut is so adorable! I grew up on military installations mostly in Europe, my dad being in the Air Force, and when stationed in Germany we lived on base in apartments but they were only 3 or 4 stories high with a large stairwell area when you walk into the building. It was cool the way families got together and decorated this area. Some were like stepping into a haunted house!

[Janet a.k.a Wonder Mom]

Angry fairy is beautiful.

Glad you had fun. NYC at Halloween is a blast. I went to the 'parade' a few years back and it was the most fun I ever had.

[Lainey-Paney]

We had a similar experience with our little angry-zebra.
He wanted no part of Halloween, or Trick-or-treating, or any of it!

As parents, we all tried.
We tried to give them the memories we treasured as children...

Maybe when they get a little older...

:)
~Laine

[ScaryMommy]

Halloween was nightmare for us. Our twins are 3 years old and neither one wanted to get in their costumes or walk around the neighborhood. Both of them had complete meltdowns and threw horrible tantrums.

Never again!

[DP]

Oh man! Nothing like the hollow carcass of Elmo to scare the living daylights out of a kid!

Peanut looks too cute! Glad to hear you had a great Halloween. :)

[Amanda Park-Lee]

Is it wrong that whenever I see cute little photos of the Peanut, I want to have a baby? Even my husband laughs at me for it!

[Mr. Big Dubya]

Why do I think "angry fairy" would be even better with an empty bottle of Scotch? Maybe that's just my sick, twisted little mind.

Maddox Jolie would have been hilarious.

[Mom101]

Oh MD, Don't you know all the meth labs are in the burbs?

Peanut looks adorable - she couldn't be angry if she wanted to, the way I see it.

[enygma]

Cute! I always wanted to be an angel or a princess but ended up being a witch. The other day, as I was stocking up on candy--for all 8 kids who showed up--I saw a little girl dressed up as Elmo. It was a bit weird to see an Elmo that large walking around, but she had this cute little belly and I had to smile when I saw her.

[margalit]

About 3 blocks from us, on another street, there is a HUGE Avalon apartment complex. Last year the girl and her friends decided that they would go there to score volume candy with little effort. Turned out that the apartment complex was a complete bust. People pay almost 4K/month and didn't have any candy to give out. This year she stuck to our more suburban streets and came home with a huge volume of candy.

Go figure!

I like the angry fairy costume. She looks like she's totally ticked at you.

[Sue]

Fairies, especially angry fairies rule. MY kid was a mermaid and several times when people told her how cute she was, she growled at them. It worked, for Halloween.

I love that stoned look they get from sugar and overstimulation.

I wonder if Peanut thought being inside Elmo meant he had eaten her? That is one of my daughter's greatest fears--being eaten. Sadly I often want to eat her, which doesn't help her get over her phobia.

[Wendy Boucher]

I'll take Angry Fairy over weird little Elmo any day. What a cutie pie. And smart too.

[jennster]

LOL- so awesome and on top of things.. love it!

[lisa v.]

The existential Elmo questions cracked me up, MD. I wonder if those kinds of thoughts ever enter a toddler's mind.

[Rbrown]

She is so fricking adorable! But I would kill to see her as Maddox Jolie...please. Next year?

[KG]

You are SO right about the existential Elmo questions. That's a lot to process for an Adorable Angry Fairy!

Out here, our Pumpkin was freaked out by a big dog dressed up as a skunk and homeowners who think it's hysterical to dress up as bloddied axe-murderers and then wonder why the Little Kids won't come up and get candy from them (!!!!!).

A cashier at our grocery store was dressed as a pimp. Our inquisitive one asked what he was dressed as. I had to think fast, but all I came up with was, "He's a fancy cowboy!"

What we do for our kids! =)

[creative-type dad]

Man that's a cute picture.

I've always wondered how kids trick or treated in NY.

[birchsprite]

very very cute.... angry fairies are the best!

[JustLinda]

She's beautiful! I love it that you share a glimpse of her with your readers hee and there...

[William]

Ahh CUte. The lollipop is classic. My kid walked aorund with the lollipop the entire night.

[Matthew]

We could hook up an angry fairy with a grumpy pirate. I think it would be a great match.

[nonlineargirl]

You never know what will freak them out. I bought some wings for Ada (you know, so she could go as a winged giraffe) and though she liked playing with the wings, she refused to put them on. I think she thought the giant butterfly was attacking her.

[LOD]

I agree that Elmo costumes are creepy. Robert wore one two years ago, and because it was so hot that year he couldn't stand wearing the headpiece. So it hung down behind his back all day. I can't say for sure, but I doubt Decapitated Elmo would be a big seller.

[Kristen]

I grew up trick-or-treating in apartment buildings in Chicago - that brought back a lot of memories!

The Peanut looked awesome as an angry fairy! (I'm loving the existential Elmo dilemma.)

[Lowa]

Your daughter is ADORABLE, but you already know that, right??

I loved reading all about how to trick or treat in an apartment building. What a cool life you have led! I grew up on 80 acres in the prairies of Canada...we didn't get much candy walking from farm to farm in the snow:)

[sweatpantsmom]

Oh, the cuteness of the Peanut is killing me. She doesn't look so much angry as lost in thought. That's it - Pensive Fairy. Or Pensive Peanut Fairy. Either way she slays me.

[Rachel]

I'm writing from god-forsaken Georgia. We moved here from NY when my daughter was 6 months old. She's ten now and we miss NY every single day. Thanks for sharing your NYC adventures and letting me live vicariously through you. BTW, Peanut is ADORABLE!

[lisa]

So I clicked on your link to the Scariest Haunted House. The homepage alone scared the crap out of me. Little dead kids always freaked me out in scary movies. You couldn't pay me to go to one of those frickin' places. Unless there was free babysitting and cocktails.

The Peanut is so adorable. How I wish I had a girl. I had two pirates and a Luke-Skywalker-Rebel-Pilot (all one word. Whenever anyone asked if he was an astronaut, they got that snotty response!)

[Sire of Sam]

We bought our Sam an Elmo costume for his first birthday. At $40, I made darn sure he wore it. He wound up in it for his first and second Halloween and first and second Purim too(Jewish holiday involving dress-up).

This year, he went as Thing 1 from Cat in the Hat. Next Purim, his soon to be born baby sister will be Thing 2.

[Her Bad Mother]

It's definitely a sign of higher intellect that she refused the existential confusion of cross-dressing as Elmo.

And that she topped her ensemble with a jaunty little orange tee. Stylin' fairy.

[momto3cubs]

Trick-or-treating in a high-rise--not something anyone around here has even THOUGHT of, LOL! Thanks for sharing.

As for Peanut, yeah, a girl's gotta have something PINK! Next year try a princess costume, complete with crown--can't go wrong with that.

[landismom]

Oh, keep the Peanut pictures coming! She is so cute.

[BossLady]

EVERYONE WISH METRODAD A HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!! TODAY IS THE DAY! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PK! I LURVE YOOOOOOOOOOO!