A Festive Halloween Weekend

Our family doesn't really go all out for Halloween, but this year was different. We were invited to two family Halloween parties this weekend--one geared more towards the kids and the other required adult costumes and encouraged creativity with potluck dishes. Both parties were fun and may start a new family tradition of Halloween costumes for all.

To Jennifer's party (the one in which adult costumes were mandatory), I took these Vampire Cookies from Baking Bites. They tasted good and fit the creativity requirement, but they took a long time to make. I mixed the dough on Friday and baked the cookies Saturday morning because the baker indicated that these cookies are best the day they're made. I thought I'd just roll them out like sugar cookies and bake them with no problem. This dough is so sticky, though, that it was incredibly hard to work with. I was constanting putting the dough in and taking it out of the freezer so the process took about two hours. I'd like to say it was worth it, but I'm not sure. I was a little disappointed because I wanted the cookies to really bleed when you bit into them, but the jam was too congealed after baking. And they obviously didn't look just like the ones on Baking Bites.

As for our costumes, Elizabeth was a cute little witch and Matthew went as a football player. Here's a photo of Brian and me:

Only one couple knew who we were right away. (Thanks, Dan and Christine!) For others it took a few minutes of deep thinking while some just had no clue. Would you have known? No? Think 25-year old expired comedy. Nothing? How about Ghostbusters? If you're still drawing a blank, go rent one of the funniest movies of all time. If you haven't seen it since you were a kid, watch it again and it will be better than you remember it. You'll actually get all the jokes now.

If you still haven't guessed, we were the Keymaster and Gatekeeper of Gozer. Obviously, a loose interpretation.