Happy Halloween

jack-o-lantern“It’s the most wonderful tiiiiiiime of the year…” Whoops! Sorry, wrong holiday. But I still feel about the same way. I’m sure Andy Williams does too.

And it’s doubly good that Halloween falls on Pizza Night this year. Though frankly, every Halloween is pizza night in our house. For the same reasons pizza is convenient on Friday nights, it’s convenient on holidays as well. I highly recommend it for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, … heck, come to think of it, I can’t think of a single holiday where pizza isn’t appropriate.

The typical Halloween day goes something like this:

  1. Wake up.
  2. Go to work.
  3. Leave work early to make it home for my favorite holiday.
  4. Mad scramble to get kids dressed in their costumes and ready to hit the streets.
  5. Mad scramble to finally put up the decorations we’ve been trying to get put up for the last three weeks.
  6. Wracking my brain for a pumpkin carving idea.
  7. Realizing we don’t actually have any pumpkins.
  8. Mad scramble to buy pumpkins.
  9. Begin carving pumpkins about twenty minutes before Trick or Treating begins.
  10. Realizing I’ve chosen a three hour carving task.
  11. Realizing I’m hungry.
  12. Pizza time!

Our favorite kind of pizza for the Halloween Scramble is: frozen. Yep. No carry out. No ordering in. Just flip on the oven and throw in a disk of mozzarella coated cardboard. It’s quick. It’s easy. It only costs about two bucks. Everyone’s happy.

If you’re asking what kind of frozen pizza, well, there’s really only one. Tostinos:

tostinos

It’s America’s best selling frozen pizza for a reason: because I’ve purchased several million of them. Hopefully a few of you will go out and buy a couple and help pick up the slack a little.

Now, with my tummy full and my pumpkin half carved, it’s time to resume the final steps of the evening:

  1. Set pumpkins on fire.
  2. Send kids on a candy-finding mission.
  3. Sit out on the front porch, wearing plaid shorts and black socks.
  4. Hand out candy to three year olds and seventeen year olds (there are rarely any kids in between).
  5. Wait for kids to return.
  6. Raid the candy bags, extracting every Almond Joy or Mounds bar I find.

Lastly, when the candles have burned low and the streets are quiet, I bring in the pumpkins, turn to say farewell to the evening, and shed a metaphorical tear for another pumpkin season come and gone in the blink of an eye.

Then I eat all that candy.



10 Responses to “Happy Halloween”

Megan said
on
October 31, 2008 at 5:20 am

Sounds like a fun Halloween to me. I hope you find lots of Almond Joys and Mounds. Wait…did you say pumpkin season is over….no, no, I won’t allow that!!!!

BarbaraB said
on
October 31, 2008 at 8:54 am

Totino’s is terrible pizza. But, once in a while I do get a craving for it. I haven’t had a really good pizza since I left Chicago for the east coast.

Biz said
on
October 31, 2008 at 9:58 am

Charlie, I should ship you some of my homemade pizzas! I can freeze them and put them on dry ice for you!

I haven’t had Totino’s pizza in about 15 years!

Jennifer said
on
October 31, 2008 at 10:53 am

I usually try to scam the butterfingers and snickers! And of course M & M’s.

Jennifer said
on
October 31, 2008 at 10:54 am

Oh and Biz, if you are offering homemade pizzas to one sibling, you have to offer them to the other one!

Ha! And, I live closer to you!!

Dinah Soar said
on
October 31, 2008 at 11:18 am

When I’m craving some nostalgia I eat a Tostinos pizza.

Otherwise, my new at home fix is the not frozen one at Walmart/Sam’s. It’s in the refrigerated section, near the deli in my store and it’s 5 bucks. It’s all ready to bake and eat. I think it’s the same pizza they serve at the Sam’s Club snack bars–so if you’ve eaten that pizza you’ll know beforehand if you’ll like it. I think it tastes the best.

After that the Brick Oven frozen one’s pretty good, though kind of expensive for frozen pizza.

Cammy said
on
October 31, 2008 at 12:00 pm

I haven’t thought about Totino’s in forever. My parents spend $2 on the pizza and $12 on ingredients to “doctor it up”.

If you wouldn’t mind, please extract a few 3 Musketeers from the kiddies’ goodie bags and send to me ASAP. Appreciate it.

txdona said
on
October 31, 2008 at 12:31 pm

Ok that is too funny! Trying to picture the plaid shorts and black socks look! 🙂 lol The whole night pretty much sounds like ours! 🙂 (and I’m one of those with a 3yr old AND a teenager tricking treating together, lol) Although last yr my teen scared the bajeebers out of most people while out trick or treating as he stood at each door in his very life like monkey mask at 6ft tall! Thinking we wont do that again this year! haha. Hey, thanks for the tip on Totinos. I’ll try one. My son likes Tony’s but for $2 I’ll try the other. 🙂 Happy Halloween!

Vicki said
on
November 1, 2008 at 11:08 pm

Sorry Charlie~we don’t like Totino’s in this house. If it has to be frozen, it’s got to be Red Baron. And Cammy, we doctor ours up too !!! If it’s the fresh not frozen, I’m with Dinah Soar, Sam’s has the best. I like the veggie one, my dh the all meat.
In all fairness, I haven’t had a Totino’s in like….20 yrs. so I’ll try one and see if my taste buds have changed. It’s said they do every 7 yrs., but I’ve never noticed it if they have.

Jen said
on
November 2, 2008 at 12:53 am

I ate all the candy before we even went anywhere!