{"id":730,"date":"2006-10-31T17:00:53","date_gmt":"2006-10-31T22:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=730"},"modified":"2006-10-31T17:46:01","modified_gmt":"2006-10-31T22:46:01","slug":"a-parents-guide-to-halloween","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=730","title":{"rendered":"A Parent’s Guide to Halloween"},"content":{"rendered":"
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  1. Most towns have trick-or-treating end before nighfall, but don’t let that stop you from decking your kid out in reflective tape and glowsticks. Sure, it will ruin their Batman costume and make them look like a Christmas tree with a cape, but if you don’t then the other parents will glare at you and make you feel so<\/em> guilty.\n<\/li>\n
  2. Explain to your kids: Never<\/em> accept candy from strangers, unless it’s Halloween – when you should wander around the neighborhood begging for it.\n<\/li>\n
  3. Make sure your child has a nice, large sack or pillowcase for trick-or-treat, and avoid using hard containers like buckets. This makes it less obvious when you begin “skimming” their haul when they aren’t looking.<\/li>\n
  4. Don’t feel bad about dipping into your child’s candy when they aren’t around. You helped make the costume, after all. And even if you didn’t: all that candy isn’t good for them anyway.<\/li>\n
  5. You will see all levels of costumes. You’ll see one kid dressed as a shogun in authentic period garb, and another kid dressed as a ghost using a plaid sheet with a urine stain. For some reason, you’re supposed to give candy and compliments to both of them. I don’t know why either.<\/li>\n
  6. Just to mess with the trick or treaters who come to your door: Try dressing as Santa and giving out painted eggs.<\/li>\n
  7. It doesn’t matter if your kid is dressed up as Frankenstein, a zombie, or Idi Amin, the moment you hand them a flashlight they are going to start waving it around in everyone’s eyes and making lightsaber noises<\/em>. Little brats.\n<\/li>\n
  8. To get revenge, make them wear their coats. Oh yeah. That will make their costume look real<\/em> good.\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Enjoy your Halloween. Save me a Zagnut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Most towns have trick-or-treating end before nighfall, but don’t let that stop you from decking your kid out in reflective tape and glowsticks. Sure, it will ruin their Batman costume and make them look like a Christmas tree with a cape, but if you don’t then the other parents will glare at you and make […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}