Welcome to another Grateful Heart Monday! Today’s gratitude is for the surprisingly good Halloween 2020 I had just over a week ago now.
October 31st always benchmarks the end of the warm season for me. It’s the last night I keep the ornamental ponds open and all the summer decorations and accent lighting out. It also of course is when trick-or-treaters come out, which is something my partner and I have come to enjoy by decorating to get in the spirit of the occasion ourselves. Unfortunately, many of the Halloween’s around here since I moved to Toledo have been exceptionally rainy and cold, thus putting a serious damper on the occasion. Add in this year’s COVID crisis and many parents having previously told me they weren’t allowing their kids to trick-or-treat this year, I had questioned whether to even decorate or not. Thankfully, I did, but even more thankfully, was when the weather did cooperate and allowed for far more kids to enjoy the evening. While last year, we had a tremendous number of treats left over, this year we just about ran out! In addition, we also were able to have a fire in our firepit in the driveway for the trick-or-treating hours, which helped to create a nice festive mood and keep us all warm too!
Beyond the pleasure of seeing the delight of parents and their kids in costumes, like this one homemade full-body dinosaur suit that was pretty darn amazing and another who had created their own wonder woman outfit, I was overly thankful especially for the many compliments I received for my work in the gardens and yard. This year I also lent a hand to helping others have nice yards for Halloween as well by cutting three different neighbor’s grasses earlier in the evening. I was thankful to have had such a burst of energy to do so in light of how my health has felt lately.
And while the day started with a nice breakfast at a local chain restaurant, First Watch, it ended with doing something I normally would have waited until the day after to do, that being the decoration take-down. But, in light of the weather calling for it to be in the 30’s with 40 mph winds the next day, we opted to do the holiday cleanup and the end of the season work once the trick-or-treating hours were over. On some level, it really was a major relief to be able to wake up the next day and not have that looming over me to do.
Oh, and I should also mention that after all was said and done with the cleanup, I honored my inner child and the occasion by eating a bunch of my favorite Halloween candy bars, Mounds and Almond Joy, while watching a scary tv series.
So, with another Halloween come and gone, I just wanted to express a little gratitude in this Grateful Heart Monday entry for this year’s October 31st having been one that left me with some very favorable memories.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
