I’m not going to lie to you. As my kids are getting older, and perilously close to being ‘too cool’ to acknowledge the fun in any of their previous childhood enjoyments, I’ve begun neurotically ramping up my sentimental-childhood-memory-making game.
For instance, this Halloween, instead of just putting out the ol’ Halloween colored placemats,
and putting mini pumpkins on the kitchen table,
and lighting Jack, our ceramic Jack-0-lantern up outside with a fresh candle every night to see during dinner,
I augmented my decorations and festive atmosphere by clearing out the seasonal aisles at The Dollar Store and Walmart. Because nothing is too good for my family!
This included the blinking light canvas ‘art’ of a pumpkin truck…(OH SO CLASSY!)…
…and signs showing the proper priorities for the season….
…complete with campy, glittery, Styrofoam candy corn wreath. (Don’t be jealous haters!)
It also included the motion-sensing, jumping hairy tarantula….
….complete with blinking red eyes that scares the bejeebies out of me every time it jumps, even though I am the one who hung it in the first place….
and silly signs reading ‘Boo’….
…and replacing the ‘Outhouse’ sign on the bathroom door with ‘Bat Motel’….
…and hanging suggestive exclamations in the bathroom…
…to match my window ghosts, and my newly-sewn-homemade-Halloween-themed shower curtain and valences….
…complete with orange and white polka-dotted trim. Martha Stewart has got NOTHIN’ on this overly-campy Mama!
I’m ramping up my game, so when my kids have kids of their own, and they come to visit us in our old age, I can pull these things out, and they’ll be transported to their own childhood holiday sentiments and memories. It’s going to be X-treme Sentimentality, with tears, and sniffles, and “Oh remember THIS!?!”
It’s going to be so awesome!
(And honestly, who DOESN’T fall for the orange and white polka dot trim? No one, that’s who.)
Mama Boe 