I hate that commercial. "Now you don't have to choose between the things that are important to you."
Because there should have been any doubt that reading to your kid is more important than a football game?
On the Halloween subject, the past couple of years we have taken R around just to the houses of people that we know in the neighborhood who he knows and who know him enough to ooh and ah appropriately over his costume. This year we went to an event sponsored by the National Zoo which netted quite a haul in mostly healthy snacks (Whole Foods was a sponsor) and will probably do the same targeted neighborhood thing.
One thing that is really different now, that we never had when I was young enough to be doing heavy duty trick or treating, is the sponsored stuff - the Zoo/Mall/Downtown business things or even our neighborhood association has a sponsored "party house" every year with a costume contest and "official" treats that in theory are supposet to supplant going door to door to total strangers.
Of course, fewer of the houses were total strangers when I was little, but I don't see all of the other stuff supplanting trick or treating so much as augmenting it and maybe helping parents target things a little more.
I will say that most of the kids in our neighborhood do have a parent somewhere close by (which is good, because we do have someone on that map in our neighborhood, which is whole 'nother issue which I just cannot even start on right now)...
no subject
Because there should have been any doubt that reading to your kid is more important than a football game?
On the Halloween subject, the past couple of years we have taken R around just to the houses of people that we know in the neighborhood who he knows and who know him enough to ooh and ah appropriately over his costume. This year we went to an event sponsored by the National Zoo which netted quite a haul in mostly healthy snacks (Whole Foods was a sponsor) and will probably do the same targeted neighborhood thing.
One thing that is really different now, that we never had when I was young enough to be doing heavy duty trick or treating, is the sponsored stuff - the Zoo/Mall/Downtown business things or even our neighborhood association has a sponsored "party house" every year with a costume contest and "official" treats that in theory are supposet to supplant going door to door to total strangers.
Of course, fewer of the houses were total strangers when I was little, but I don't see all of the other stuff supplanting trick or treating so much as augmenting it and maybe helping parents target things a little more.
I will say that most of the kids in our neighborhood do have a parent somewhere close by (which is good, because we do have someone on that map in our neighborhood, which is whole 'nother issue which I just cannot even start on right now)...