Halloween Was Made for Slackers

Halloween has always been the perfect Slacker Mom-friendly holiday.

Think about it: No cookies to bake, no cards to send, no perfect holiday family photo to stress over. No special, fancy, red-plaid-and-taffeta combinations to shop for (and then fight with your kids over, amid screams of "I'm NOT wearing THAT!"), no gifts to buy, nothing to wrap or send or deliver. No invitations to figure out how to get out of, no company shindigs where you have to make small talk with people you don't even know. No teacher gifts to buy (an impossible task, even for an ex-teacher). No deciding which in-laws to visit -- or how to break it to the ones you're ditching.

You buy a few bags of candy, whip up a few costumes, scare a few kids, and you're done.

Ah, Halloween!

I admit, before I embraced my inner Slacker Mom, I used to over-achieve and SuperMom the you-know-what out of Halloween, just like every other holiday. I used to make sure each child had two costumes, one for school (sticky, day-glo orange cupcake frosting all over the fleecy baby lamb costume I spent 10 hours making? I don't think so!) and one for trick-or-treating.

But last year, I went a different way. I took the kids to the costume store and told them they had 30 minutes to find a costume. They came home as a pretty witch and her sweet black cat. Wading through piles of frighteningly “mature” pre-teen costumes was no easy task, but it saved hours work and didn't cost much more than I would have spent on materials.

From the time my oldest was a toddler, I’ve held an elaborate annual Halloween party for all the kids we know. I planned games, treats, crafts, a full buffet, and goodie bags. I'd spend hours (and stay up half the night) making homemade, hand-decorated cupcakes and cookies that were gobbled up in seconds.

But this year, my inner Slacker Mom realized that between school, neighbors, and extracurricular activities, we'd have to invite about 60 kids. And their parents. And their siblings. So instead, I decided to spend the party budget on a mid-year trip to visit our best friends in Tampa. Not so surprisingly, the kids are totally on-board, and won't even miss the party that I've prided myself on for seven years now. Talk about a wake-up call.

Slacker Mom says ... before I know it, my kids will be grown and gone, and I‘ll be a grumpy old lady turning off my porch light at twilight on October 31. I might as well enjoy this holiday instead of trying to create a perfectly Martha Stewart holiday. So I'm going with store-bought costumes and cookies, taking my kids trick-or-treating, and enjoying some extra sleep.

After all, December is just around the corner. And my Slacker Mom detox program hasn't figured out a way to talk me down from SuperMomming the heck out of Christmas yet.