"Trick or Treat for UNICEF"

It was finally Halloween. Lot of fuss and hype over it this year in our household with this being Sanju's first trick or treating experience. Sahana had portrayed it to Sanju as being the next best thing since sliced bread (okay, make it a piece of chocolate). Actually I don't even think she actually cares for it that much, she was just happy to have some company in my view. Malini and I had decided to take the kids together around the neighborhood. For some reason it was decided that I will pick up the kids from school and needless to say I got delayed and by the time I came home battling traffic it was close to 6PM. I told the kids to make a dash for it, which they seemed to eager to do. Sahana quickly got into her special Hogwarts robe with matching cap & the wand to be one of the Gryffindor girls, think it was Hermione yesterday. Sanju was running around in her underwear unable to make up her mind between a Mickey mouse and an Elmo costume. Finally with some fuss, tears and drama Elmo won. Prem decided to join the group and we all set off to the Kumar residence.

We were greeted by a clown ( Abhi complete with his red nose) and a NASCAR driver ( Arjun) who didn't seem all that keen to follow the Halloween tradition. ARKE decided to stay back under the pretext of giving candy to the visiting kids (True intention of course was an hour of uninterruped time). Prem was tempted to stay back and tried to wiggle out, but it was too late for that. Finally the parade set off with all four kids and three adults. This year Sahana and Arjun had gotten a small box each from school to "trick or treat for UNICEF" i.e collect some coins for UNICEF as part of their trick or treating. We started off with a haunted house near the Kumar residence. Sahana refused to step in , while the rest of us braved our way through it. Clearly, we were the first ones there and a lot of the apparatus in there was being tried out for the first time. A small guy threw something at me from one of the tomb stones but before I could react, came and fetched that from me saying he broke something in that process. After this, We finished up with the rest of the cul-de-sac constantly reminding the kids : Say "Trick or Treat" or "Thank You", Little ones were particularly confused when someone held out a whole bag and said "Take 2". Abhi insisted he couldn't do what they were saying as he only wanted one, Sanju was wondering why they would offer only one basket of candy and say "take 2".

Meanwhile, "Trick or treat for UNICEF" wasn't going all that well and ran into a lot of technical glitches. First Sahana started off by saying it too softly and no one could hear it. We told her to fix that but then, she started off by saying "Trick or Treat for UNICEF" but most people didn't hear the second part and offered her candy and wondered why she still lingered around. Finally the winning strategy was that she would wait until all the kids got candy and then hold our her little box and say "Trick or Treat for UNICEF". This worked quite well in the next few houses though we did catch all of them a bit off-guard. Most of them went "Oh, you need money, I need to get some change" and told us to wait a bit while they dug out their money. By the time we hit PV road, the kids were on a roll. Ofcourse there were people who had no idea was UNICEF was , "Oh, you want candy for yunicef, could he not come along? " and others that had a perplexed look and pretended to not hear the second trick or treating. Then ofcourse there was Sanjay, " Oh, you guys are collecting for UNICEF ? That is great!!" and no movement. We were waiting & waiting...until Geetha gently nudged him and said, "Sanjay, can you get them some money? " and then the realization struck and he said, "Oh, yes, sure".

After a few houses on PV, little ones were getting a bit tired. Abhi wanted to take a pumpkin from someone's front yard intsead of the candy they had to offer. Abhi & Sanju fought over a door bell and greeted the lady of the house with some massive tears...They also started saying "Trick or Treat for UNICEF" and insisted people had to give them coins in their bucket. After a few houses in Celata we decided to turn back. Soon we were back at the Kumar residence, Mr.Kumar in the meanwhile had done a good job of emptying the candy jar. We decied to make a quick exit before Sanju fell apart as it was getting to be well past her bed time.
It was a fun experience, thanks mostly to "trick or treat for UNICEf" and the litle ones of course. Sahana did have an almost full UNICEF box, after all.

Sanju came home, spread out all her candy, picked one to try, didn't like it and threw that away. This exercise went on and after about 4 or 5 unsuccessful attempts went back to good ol' M&Ms.
Anyway it is Saturday now, the candies are all still spread out on our family room floor with strict orders from Sanju not to disturb them. I think she is really proud of that collection and anyway collection is more fun than actually eating it for these kids...