I always try to put the Halloween stuff away the day after.

I might have five overflowing laundry baskets in my dining room at the moment, and be perfectly okay with it — but to me, there’s something unacceptably untidy about having holiday detritus around after the holiday in question is over.

Maybe I drove by too many sad Christmas-lit houses in February, growing up. (Phoenix is huge on holiday lights; probably because there aren’t many natural signs of the season around.)

In any case, I was unsuccessful this year. It wasn’t til this past weekend that I finally crammed the black and orange back into the Halloween Rubbermaid and shoved it into the holiday closet, swearing I’ll deal with that mess by Thanksgiving.

Then I opened the dryer the other day to find that Annabelle had put the shirt from her Halloween costume into the hamper without unpinning the felt/pom pommed poodle tail. (Of course this is my fault, as the responsible adult.) We’ll be finding those pom poms around til next Halloween, I suspect.

Oh, and I even forgot to post photos from Halloween. So here you go. Sophie was Foofa from “Yo Gabba Gabba” (not homemade). Annabelle was a black poodle (homemade, as previously mentioned and, I must add, a huge hit — and my relationship with the hot glue gun was officially kindled).

Boo. Hoo. Halloween 2009 is officially over.