New Family Tradition?

We may have begun a new family tradition tonight . . . but first let me give you some background.

Chris and I aren't particularly excited about celebrating Halloween. We don't agree w/ the roots of the holiday, we don't give our kids much candy to begin with and we aren't excited about giving in to the commercialism found in our culture. Therefore we have decided to not give Halloween much credence.

So no, our kids did not dress up and I don't think they knew the difference! Instead, since we live in a fairly busy neighborhood, we left just before dusk tonight for dinner. We took the kids to a relatively nicer restaurant, sat outside (it was a beautiful fall night) and had a wonderful dinner together. The kids were pretty well behaved - although I had to take Ellie away from the table at one point into the bathroom to give her a stern lecture - but other than that they ate, laughed and even danced together.

We drove back home, turned off all the lights in the house once we were home and hung out in the back room just playing w/ the kids. It was such a pleasant evening!