For kids, it's about the time spent, not the money

It’s odd what memories stand out from your childhood.

While some details fade away to be forgotten forever, others are as clear as if they happened yesterday.

I have a handful of Halloween memories that are like that — bright moments that make me smile, like the year we had snow on the ground when we went trick-or-treating.

One of those quirky, funny memories is the year my parents crafted my costume out of an old orange rain poncho, a cardboard box, some rope and a permanent marker.

Any guesses what I was that year?

If you put all of those odds and ends together and got pumpkin, you’re right.

It was the year I was seven.

The box was squished into a round-ish shape with the rope, covered by the poncho and my dad drew on triangle eyes and a gap-toothed jack-o-lantern smile.

The box was about hip to shoulder height on me, with an opening at the top.

I’m wondering if anyone else has also guessed the design flaw my parents missed on the one holiday kids spend hopping in and out of the car to knock on doors and ask for candy.

The snag, you see, is that when a 7-year-old sits down in the backseat in a pumpkin-box that’s more than half as tall as she is, her head is swallowed by the pumpkin.

Yes, I spent the entire night looking at the inside of a cardboard box in between our trick-or-treating stops.

But we laughed about it then and we laugh about it now.

It was an inexpensive and (I’m guessing) hastily thrown together costume that created my favorite childhood Halloween memory.

So, the significance about that parents is, I guess, that it’s not really about how much you spend. Those aren’t the memories your children save. It’s about the time spent together.

Farley is the editor of the Daily American Republic and can be contacted at dfarley.dar@gmail.com.