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I don’t know if you have heard this or not, but there are varying opinions on whether or not professed believers and followers of Jesus should participate in the various frivolities associated with the celebration on October 31st that we call Halloween.

This post has nothing to do with that. 🙂

Two things that were both cool and odd about tonight’s Trick or Treating adventures for the Campbell Family:

1. The Location
Half way through the hunt tonight, I literally stopped in my tracks and laughed out loud that we were in Vermont. Again. We don’t live in Vermont. It’s several hours drive from our house. But this is now the second Halloween in four years that we have walked the streets of this tiny Northeast state in search of benevolent candy donors.

Isn’t that crazy?

2. Jo
We were running behind schedule and had two, no, make that three tiny children who were looking forward to trick or treating somewhere in the northeastern US on this chilly Monday evening. (Well, OK, Kirstie didn’t exactly understand how much she was looking foward to it, but we knew she was too!)

It was dinner time (5:30) and with the day-old time shift, it was already quite dark. We stopped first at McDonald’s to fill up the tiny tummies before traversing the unknown urban corridors we found ourselves surrounded by. I was not satisified with waging urban warfare, though. I knew there had to be less concrete clad communities nearby, and as we sat down to eat, I noticed a lady seated by herself at the table next to ours.

“Do you live around here?” I queried.

“Yes.” Her reply assumed that everyone who was in that building, and perhaps in that town currently, was of course a resident and had been for 4 or 5 generations. That was not the case, as I assured her.

“Well, we’re from out of town, and we have three little guys who would like to do some trick or treating tonight. Is there a neigborhood nearby that you could direct us to for a little halloween fun?”

Boy could she.

Long story short, Jo (we later discovered that was her name) directed us to her neighborhood where hundreds of folks wandered through blocks of small town America, dressed in an array of festive costumes and fraternizing with the locals – all seeming to know who the other one was, and have some history with each other. (All except us, of course). We were warmly received, though, and the boys were a hit with their Rockstar (Ian) and iPod (Alex) costumes. Great, great stuff.

So, we had a blast, and got home from our second tour of duty in Vermont with three full bags of candy, and three very, very tired kids.

Not to mention Mom & Dad.

Another Halloween in the books, and it was a great one!