HALLOWEEN 2010: Part I

Hello Friends!


How was your Halloween? If you’re like me, Halloween IS the official holiday of the year, and I’m the sort that draws it out through several days (or--*ahem*--apparently over a month on this blog!), so it helps that Halloween fell on a weekend day! If you don't believe me, check out LAST year's THREE DAY posting: HERE, HERE, and HERE!

Here’s a slice of the fun Halloween bedlam this year:

Saturday: One of my best friends, her husband, and her baby, decided to go to a free event in Central Park. For those of you who aren’t aware, Central Park is one of the largest and oldest parks in NYC. Over a hundred acres, it sits smack in the middle of Manhattan, and is filled with all sorts of fun things to do recreationally. If you’ve been following this blog long enough, you’ll have seen me post about it HERE.

In this case, there was a Pumpkin Festival, specifically geared towards family and children, but I wanted to tag along because they advertised it as an old fashioned country type event with a “pumpkin patch” and “hay rides,” and you know my inner farm-girl wasn’t about to pass it up!

In any case, baby Rob Junior, only a year old, was dressed up as Chewbacca (yes, the wookie from Star Wars!), and here he is with his cute costume, in the stroller:

(click pics to enlarge)

Isn't he adorable?

And yes, I wanted to squeeze his cheeks for all of that cuteness!



Anyhow, when we got to the park, it was MAYHEM. THOUSANDS of people and their children were there. More people than I could imagine! It probably had something to do with the fact that it was a FREE EVENT.

Hundreds of costumed kids, in all sorts of cute and clever outfits, dispersed madly throughout the park. They, and their parents, seemed to take this event seriously:

I don't know....they could be dressed up for Halloween...but since this is NYC, these COULD BE their NORMAL outfits!


I am hoping that one of this girl's parents is under there!

There was also an entertainment area and farmer’s fair in one section of the park, where entertainers and vendors of all things Halloween mingled:

I juggling, unicycle riding skeleton....

Pumpkin Carving:

Yes, this is a real pumpkin. Yes, it’s just a weeeee bit bigger than your average gourd:

We eventually wound our way throughout the acreage, to the VERY LONG LINE that would eventually lead us to the Pumpkin Patch:



I imagined beautiful pumpkins on green hills in the park. What we got was…ummm…a bit more different, a bit more city-like. The pumpkins were placed all around the concrete section s of a fountain area of the of the park. As were hay bales. To some degree this made for “atmosphere” but honestly, it felt less than bucolic to me. That and the fact that TONS of children crowded into this small space, screaming, and grabbing and kicking at pumpkins. Even little Rob wasn’t into it; he really didn’t smile and looked rather concerned….

Not the greatest pumpkin portrait in the world....

Mommy steps in to make it all better....

We did eventually get him into the spirit of things, but I don’t know if I would go through those maddening crowds for an event like this again!

Daddy gets baby Rob to smile!

I will say, the children's costumes were cute...


And I DID enjoy this innovative idea of putting pumpkins in the fountain....



Later that day, I rushed home to finish cooking for my big Halloween party. Every year, I host one of these shindigs, a big party with tons of food and friends in costume. It’s usually a low key affair but it’s friendly and fun.

Besides my friends coming...


...there was another familiar face, in yet another cool costume!

Little Rob, "Man About Town!"

And that was just DAY ONE of the Halloween Extravaganza!

Up NEXT: Part 2, where Zan transforms herself into a GEISHA, and heads out to the Village Parade!