Adventures Of Fatherhood

Adventures Of Fatherhood
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One day my kids will understand how blessed they are when it comes to Halloween.
They live in a town — Berlin — that celebrates it like no other in my opinion. Plus, they have a mom who has a tremendous Halloween spirit and is amazingly creative when it comes to costumes and decorating the house. These two factors combine for a tremendously memorable experience for them as well as us.

When it comes to Halloween, I just stay out of Pam’s way because I don’t want to distract once she gets her mojo going. I just try and take the lead with the parenting and let her focus on her to-do list with decorations, costumes and tending to details I would never ever have thought to carry out.

I have learned this over the last eight years of living in Berlin. I’m available to help her if she needs me, but she really only calls on me the day of to help with the heavy lifting or the high things. She’s a perfectionist and that’s a good thing and when it comes to Halloween I cannot match her skills.

The boys seem to get it as well. As Halloween approaches, they understand their mom might be a little distracted. It’s a good thing they get it because if they didn’t I would be worried.

You see, over the last couple weeks, our house was overtaken by the color yellow because our theme this year was the “Despicable Me 2” movie. Pam was Lucy. I was Gru. Beckett was El Macho, the villain in the movie, and Carson was one of the minions, Bob. If you haven’t seen the movie, I’m sorry you won’t know who those characters are, but I thought I would share a photo from the night. Usually I only put the family in the paper once a year at Christmas but Pam outdid herself this year and I had to share.

For our kids, this is a movie favorite, and one Pam decided (yes it’s her call entirely) would be our theme this year a couple months ago. Once that’s official, her creativity goes wild. In the week leading up to Halloween, there are a lot of preparations being made for the big night.

fatherhood pic-1This year most of Pam’s talent was spent on painting pumpkins. Turning the orange symbols of harvest and Halloween into yellow minions with blue overalls, one or two eyes depending that were cut out from the bottom of aluminum cans, facial expressions and sometimes even a hat based off the various minions in the movie. It was amazing how she transformed these pumpkins and hundreds of kids had their pictures taken with them on Halloween night in our yard. The sad thing will be throwing them away once they rot.

In Berlin, we are not alone in our passion for Halloween, as many houses go all out and spent a lot of time, money and effort decorating. Our street, in particular, has gotten so into it that it’s closed to vehicular traffic because it’s like the Boardwalk on a crowded summer night, as thousands of adults and children check out what the various houses have worked up this year.

You can see the passion the residents display throughout the small town for yourself on the Town of Berlin’s Facebook page, which includes photos from all over town, including a line 100-plus deep at the Burbage Funeral Home for the haunted festivities.

It’s a tremendous night in Berlin and brings the most amount of people to town than any other event throughout the year. The great thing about it is the residents and their homes and children are the stars of the night along with the 3,000 trick-or-treaters who walk throughout town every single year. It’s a special tradition.