Halloween makes me nostalgic for the days of young parenthood. With most other holidays, the nature and tenor of them, how we celebrate, changes as children grow. Christmas isn’t the same as it was when Santa or the Easter Bunny made “appearances,” but the days are still fundamentally the same — and we celebrate them together.

But Halloween is for little kids, and my kids … aren’t little anymore.

Still, Tom carved the pumpkin and I roasted the seeds. We handed out Snickers and Sour Patch Kids. Copper was his usual crazy self.

But I kept remembering when the girls would come back with their big pillowcase hauls, masks askew, makeup smeared. They would sort candy by size and brand, then commence trading.  Who wants my Milky Way? What’s a Heath Bar? Oh, no, not raisins!!

Which is all to say that the ghosts I saw last night weren’t creepy or scary. They were cuddly elephants, cute clowns and beautiful princesses — the memories of my own sweet girls when they were young.