National Harry Potter Day: R.I.P Lilly and James :(

If you were to ask me to describe the perfect Halloween, I would do so with the following bullet points:

• E.T.
• Pumpkin flavored snacks
• The Village Soundtrack
• It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!
• Little children in ridiculously cute costumes, forced on them by their parents.
• Especially Peter Pan and Hobbit costumes...
• Candy
• Hocus Pocus
• Harry Potter, books 2 and 4
• And....an Alfred Hitchcock film marathon

In the past Halloween has actually been one of my least favorite holidays - but only because I've been at school the past two years and missed all the family fun at home. This year I celebrated by going to the ward trunk-or-treat with my folks on Saturday; helping pass out the candy to the cute kiddos, and the not-so-cute older kids who really just need to give up and buy their own candy.
Monday night I went to a YSA Halloween Party with Ashley Jarman It was super fun and I'm glad I went :)

Tuesday night I celebrated the holiday with my Dad! We watched Wait Until Dark for what I thought was the first time, but part way through I realized I had actually seen it before, but it was so long ago that I couldn't remember all the particulars. So basically it was like watching it again for the first time...which really is the best way to enjoy movies, I'd say. I love being surprised, in a 'non-gory', 'non-life-threatening' way.

Side Note - My mom is watching Once Upon a Time right now (great show; beautiful people) - and I would just like to express gratitude that she did not name me Rumple, or Snow, or something of that ridiculous nature.
That much said - I cannot promise the same for my future kids.
One of you will probably be named Ice Cream - depending on how much sleep I've had before we fill out the papers.

Okay - back to Halloween. The actual day now - Wednesday I spent dancing around the house to the Village soundtrack (which you can dance to, believe it or not) while doing some chores. Then that evening I went to see Luke perform in Sweeney Todd with Greasepaint Theater, in downtown Scottsdale. They all did a spectacular job, which I don't often say about youth productions of Sondheim. Luke in particular was amazing, as was the girl who played Mrs. Lovett. I still have mixed feelings about that musical - because as cool as the music is, the story is just gross. A good gross, but still gross. Anyway, it was fun seeing it Halloween night, and I got to help collect tickets at the door and hand out programs, which I've never done for anything before - so that was kind of fun.

You know what I love most about Holidays though? It's not the candy or the presents - and it's certainly not the stupid outfits teenagers try to pull off.
It's the given excuse to celebrate.
I love finding reasons to do fun things every day, like makes pies, or dance to scary music, or slide down the hallway in my socks...

So today, while I was thinking about all the fun I'm going to have with future offspring - forcing them into Yoda hats, Hogwarts robes or fake Hobbit feet - I decided to look up some more fun holidays I could celebrate with them - and here are some of the fun ones I found!

Book Lover's Day - November 3rd
King Tut Day - November 4th
World Kindness Day - November 13th
Button Day - November 16th
Have a Party with your Bear Day - November 16th

And those are all for this month alone! November is also National Novel Writing month, National Adoption Awareness month...and National Model Railroad month, Peanut Butter lovers month, Aviation History month, International Drum month...the list goes on and on!

So many excuses to celebrate...and buy model trains.
I love it.