When I grew up, Halloween was the kick-off to a long awaited holiday season.

We had costume parties at school (when you used to be able to call it a Halloween party complete with witches and bats, instead of a bland Fall Festival complete with scarecrows and hay bales – why were party poopers invented?), small town parades to prance proudly down our eight block Main Street (where every single citizen seemed to show up) and trick-or-treating mania where I’d have to come home halfway through the evening and dump my candy (promptly hiding it all from my dad or it’d be gone by morning) because my pumpkin got so overloaded, it was too heavy for me to carry.

Lucky for me most of my life, I’ve always had my sister side kickin’ it as a partner-in-crime. If I was going to be dressing up (sometimes making an ass out…