Halloween is always a big event on “Can Do” Street!

Just about everyone participates in Halloween, even adults who don’t have kids or grandkids, because it is always so much fun.

The Halloween celebration starts at the recreation center, which is decorated both outside and inside to look like a haunted house. Everyone gathers around 2 PM. The “Can Do” kids carry and hang up their Halloween costumes in the storage room to be put on just before they go trick or treating.

They walk through a pumpkin patch and each “Can D0” picks out a pumpkin to paint in the crafts class. There’s a hall of funny mirrors maze where the “Can Dos” walk through and see themselves as all different shapes and sizes.

Then the “Can Do” Kids take a tour of the haunted house, stopping to look at the decorated rooms. If they want, they can paint a window pane on one of the windows of the house and the best window painter gets a prize.  Some of the “Can Dos”  make Halloween desserts that everyone can enjoy at supper before going trick or treating. The seniors club members help the kids make and decorate:

• popcorn balls
• eyeball in mud pudding ( marshmallow with a dried cranberry stuck in the middle and sitting in a small bowl of instant chocolate pudding )
• pumpkin bread
• ghost and witch cookies

Just before supper some of the “Can Dos”, who have been taking square dancing lessons put on a show of what they have learned. Then the choral group, directed by Grandpa Dooley, the music instructor, sing Halloween songs and the audience sings along.

At dinner, in the recreation center cafeteria, the “Can Dos” eat with all their parents and friends and other adults.

Then it is time…time to have faces painted to match costumes…time to get into costumes. Then the big event…the ragamuffin parade, when all the kids parade around in their costumes, parents and grandparents take pictures and there are prizes for the best costumes.

Just when the “Can Dos ‘ think they can’t possibly have any more fun…it is time to trick or treat up and down “Can Do” Street and all the side streets!

Some of the adults leave to get back home in time to give out Halloween treats to the kids as they go from door to door.

Parents and grandparents walk with the children and stay with them as they go from house to house tick or treating. The “Can Dos” all mind their manners, saying thank you when they are handed a treat.

After they visit the last house, it is time to go home. Once home, each “Can Do” spills out his or her bag of  Halloween treats to see what treats the bag holds.

The moms and dads usually say, “You can eat one treat now, then it is off to bed. Tomorrow is soon enough to portion out your treats over the next few weeks, so you don’t get a stomach ache”.

And that is how Halloween happens on “Can Do” Street!