Enjoying the yearly Trunk or Treat

For eight years, I have participated in Green River URA/Main Street’s Trunk or Treat.

The Trunk or Treat may have moved locations a few times, but it’s always been fun. It’s a chance for local businesses employees and owners to dress up in Halloween costumes, decorate their vehicles or trunks and hand out candy.

Over the years, the employees and their family members at the Green River Star have been the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Scooby-Doo group, Smurfs, Willy Wanka and the Umpa Lumpas, the Super Mario Brothers, Cat in the Hat and characters from the movies “Madagascar 3” and “Angry Birds.”

Even with all of these various themes, I still remember our first Trunk or Treat. It was just me and one other coworker who decided to hand out candy. A couple of other coworkers helped us decorate our Green River Star van. I was a witch and my coworker was a ghoul I think. We had huge spiders dangling from spider webs and a witch’s cauldron that looked like it was steaming. We used dry ice to make it smoke. We had a rat sitting on the side of it and told visitors we were making rat stew.

That year, I quickly learned we went a little bit too scary because some kids wouldn’t even come to the van. I can still recall how I had to tell children it was OK and that I was just dressed in a costume. At one point, my coworker even took off his mask.

From that day on, we’ve tried to keep our costumes family friendly.

Each year, we had a different challenge. We were known for painting our van. I think the prettiest paint job was for the Smurfs.

However, I would say the best entrance was when we pulled up in the van painted like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle’s van and jumped out with our weapons ready. It was awesome.

The only year I was unable to participate was when I was seven months pregnant with my first son. I had gotten really sick and was extremely sad when I couldn’t go. I was supposed to be Daphne from Scooby-Doo. My coworkers took photos of the van and their costumes and sent them to me. They said everyone kept asking Fred where Daphne was.

What I also liked about the event is I would get my children involved in it.

One year, I made my oldest son into a box of nerds and my youngest into a Sweettarts packet to go with the “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” theme. Another year, my oldest son was a Smurf and a mushroom, both costumes I made for him.

Each year, my children looked forward to dressing up, passing out candy and of course, getting their own candy and eating it.

One year, we decided to ditch the van and put up a trailer instead, this was so we could dance like circus animals in the movie “Madagascar 3.” The following year, we used the trailer again to set up an Angry Birds scene.

We actually made a real, working catapult that the angry birds used to shoot the pigs. It was not a good year for me to be a king pig as I got hit over and over again with a ball, but it was still fun.

I can still see my children laughing as they and the other angry birds shot balls at us.

What’s also great is I’m not the only employee who gets the family involved, which is amazing.

For me, it went from a company event to a family event and that’s what I like most about it.

This year, we were the Ghostbusters and I made my youngest son’s ghost costume, but decided to buy my oldest son’s Slimer costume. Each year, is a new challenge and a new chapter of fun.

That’s why I like the Green River Star employees and family members participating in the Trunk or Treat.