Spooked in the Spooking

A friend and her five-year-old daughter started the tradition of 'ghosting' in our neighbourhood and it was our turn to return the favour.

       You put together a hand-decorated bag with a few treats and a picture of a ghost for them to hang on the door so others know they've been 'Ghosted'.   You creep up to someone's house in the dark, ring the bell and then run real fast before they see you.
       My six-year-old and I put together our bag and head over in the dark.  Since these folks have two big, German-Shepherd cross dogs, I'd phoned the Mom ahead of time.  While she would be out that evening, she was leaving her husband a note to keep the dogs inside around 7 pm.   It's a nice, crisp, evening.  We come in through the front gate.   J was very excited to do a 'ghosting' but she was NOT going to walk up the front steps to place the bag by the door and ring the bell.  I told her to wait at the side of the house -- the front yard is too long for us to get out of the gate without them seeing us.  I would join her there. I said we'd wait there until after they'd got their package and then head out the gate when they were back in the house.
      J hides at the side of the house, I go up the step, put the bag down and ring the door bell.  Suddenly there is loud, VERY loud barking from the back of the house and it is clear the barking is coming to the front.  I race down the stairs, the youngest big dog's coming up beside J and we RUN!  Down the walkway, out the gate, down the street until we finally get to the corner.  We stop to catch our breath.  And we laugh.
      We were so scared at the barking that we had kept running out the yard to not get caught.  But the truth was, when the dog saw it was us, he seemed to recognize us, stopped and trotted up the front steps to see what we'd left at the door.  We had no reason to be scared but he did his watch-dog job well by scaring us off!  At least his owners still got their treats.
     "Boo" or "Ghost" your neighbours is a lot of fun.  Here's a link over to Skip to my Lou's Blog.  Cindy has a beautiful bag you can make for the neighbour or a simplified paper version you can print off.  Thank you, Cindy.