Halloween

My Nephew Matthew

Holidays are fun but being able to celebrate them with children is the best.  Above is a picture of Matthew.  He's carving a sugar pumpkin I gave his Mom, my sister Claire, on her birthday.  This morning she sent me this picture of him carving it!

There are many many benefits to living on Quill Hill but they don't extend to many trick or treaters making the treck up our driveway.  The incredible thing to me is that as I write this I'm able to know that Matthew is carving this pumpkin.

Phone calls used to just mean conversations--now they can include images too.  Getting this picture this morning made me feel like I was visiting Claire, Andrew and their boys and sharing in the holiday together.

My favorite wake up greeting ever was from Matthew.  I was staying overnight at Claire's house in Boston, and it was very early morning, maybe even before 6 am.  Matthew was getting dressed and as Claire was chasing him, he ran into the room where I was sleeping and noticed me on the bed.  At this point he loudly exclaimed with a huge smile on his face, " Oh Hi!!!!!"  Best morning hello ever!

Yesterday, I got this wonderful email from my god-daughter and neice Fayrah:

dear nouna,
i am going to be a witch for halloween, and anna is going to be a pumpkin, and we don't know what theo is going to be yet! but we hope you have a good halloween tomorrow!
love,
fayrah

Fayrah as a witch & Anna Claire as pumpkin

These children have made this year's halloween so precious.  As an adult it's sometimes easy to just dismiss the holidays as one more day.  I'm so thankful that I can share these times with them even though we live 3 hours away!