World Peace and Scary Santa

Last week I stopped at the Starbucks in the Safeway shopping area to pick up some teacher and babysitter gifts. I had my three-year old son with me. A woman approached him and asked him what he was he wanted from Santa Claus this year for Christmas.

He hid behind my legs--all things Santa scare him. Have you seen the Santa who trolls the Safeway shopping plaza with candy canes hanging on his belt looking for little ones to either delight or freak out? My 7 1/2 year old daughter who is now wise to all things Santa and Tooth Fairy happily takes the candy cane while the little one hides from the scary man in red.

The woman at Starbucks joked with my little guy asking if he wanted "world peace" and of course I had to share my story from when my little girl was two and a half.

That year, we went on the Snoqualmie Santa Train ride and at our destination, we went to meet Santa.

Jokingly, but not so much, we told our little girl to ask Santa for World Peace. When it was her turn, she completely fell apart. The picture I have is of a terrified little girl just trying to get away from the creepy old guy.

She left with a pocket full of fear and a Northwest Railway Museum key chain. It was one of those plastic tubes with colored gel and glitter floating around inside. She loved it and treasured it--despite her trauma.

A few days later, she was in tears. "Where's my World Peace? Where's my World Peace?" she cried. Yup, she had lost her keychain--she thought its name was World Peace.

World Peace is still floating around here somewhere in a toy bin. Every once and awhile we find it and declare we have found World Peace! We just don't talk about the Scary Santa

Gunno Looses Both Races

Yesterday afternoon, as I ventured off the Plateau going from the 228th Fire Station north towards Redmond, I noticed that MOST candidates had removed their campaign signs already!

Thank you! Thank you!

It was as if there was a race to see who could remove their campaign signs the quickest and I LIKE IT. I can imagine the candidates running to pull up their signs as the polls closed on Tuesday night, checking their maps of where they posted them so as not to miss a stray on a side road.

Noticably still planted in the ground were Stan Gunno's and Mark Cross' signs. In this race, they both lost.

The Votes are In!

Congratulations to the incumbent Sammamish City Council members Nancy Whitten, Michelle Petitti and Mark Cross (who is also serving as our appointed Mayor this year) for their re-elections yesterday.

While Whitten and Petitti's positions were close (and not all votes counted yet), all three re-elections were a tribute to a job well done on their current posts.

Now, let's see who can remove their campaign signs from our roads the quickest!

Think Outside the Candy Box

Corey Colwell-Lipson, a Sammamish resident, was trick-or-treating last year with her 6-year-old princess and two-year-old fairy collecting the usual Smarties and Kit Kats when one house gave out stickers. Colwell-Lipson, who mostly chooses healthy and organic treats for her children, was thrilled. A few other houses gave out non-candy toys, but with the twisty roads and darkness of Halloween night, she forgot which houses they were. She thought it would be great to have a directory of houses which gave out non-candy treats. Then she started thinking of all the ways to make Halloween healthier.

From this, Green Halloween was born. She joined forces with Whole Foods and other businesses to promote alternative Halloween fun. Green Halloween is a community movement to help make Halloween safer and healthier for our children and our environment.

The Green Halloween website offers a map where you can find houses offering non-candy treats or enter your own Green Halloween house.

I love this idea and had even bought an 80 count package of mini playdoughs at Costco (under $10) to give out for Halloween before I saw the website. I had planned to just give out the playdough to the young kids and get chocolate for the older kids, but I was inspired! I picked up Halloween pencils at the Target dollar store section(10 for $1) and some Halloween erasers.

My very informal poll of my daughter (7) and my son (2 1/2) found that the 7 year old would choose a sticker, pencil or fun trinket over candy 9 out of 10 times. However the little one consistently chose candy until I said, "Well what about if it was a Diego toy?" Diego is his favorite character.

On the website, in response to children getting upset giving up candy, she writes:

"Other children may be upset, disappointed or angry at the idea of giving up what they have known and what they expect. This is completely understandable and is one reason Green Halloween is placing a great deal of emphasis on children in the 1- 5 age ranges. Young children have less concretized expectations of holiday traditions and will generally be open to creating new ones."

In our house we've always had a rule. One piece of candy per year of age (and when I throw in one or two more, I'm a super star Mom). We put the rest in the candy bowl and give it out to the other kids. The next day, we send it to work with Dad and let everyone at Microsoft get fat and sugar buzzed.

This is not just to save my kids from the colorings, preservatives and high fructose corn syrup. It saves me, too! There have been many a Halloween where I have sat among a pile of candy wrappers with a piece of chocolate in the corner of my mouth and a tummy ache wondering what on earth I had just done?

Candy is easy because it's cheap--but we need to find other ways to give the kids something fun on Halloween without buying those huge bags of candy. We can get lots of cheap trinkets/stickers from the dollar store or the Oriental Trading Company. But, they are likely all made in China and not all that earth friendly.

Green Halloween has lots of great suggestions and good partners that are helping to make this Halloween Greener and affordable! Check out the site at for more information.

Cleaning Up and Out

Don't toss those alkaline batteries in the trash! While they contain considerably less mercury than in previous years, it's still a good idea to collect them and dispose of them at one of Sammamish's Recycling Collection Events.

If you've already got a collection, don't forget to drop them off at tomorrow's event at Eastlake High School from 9 am to 3 pm. Among other things, they will be collecting AAAA, AAA, AA, A, B, C and D cell batteries.

This is not a hazardous waste event (that's another event), so don't bring your old paint, pesticides, flourescent lights or any other household chemicals. You can wait for the Wastemobile to come to Sammamish or bring them to the hazardous waste collection sites in Seattle and Factoria.

Tomorrow, bring down your old batteries, household goods and clothing, flattened cardboard, motor oil, filters and antifreeze. There are fees to drop off old tires, propane tanks, porcelain toilets, appliances and electronic equipment. Check out their flyer for details.

If you don't want to haul or pay for removal of old items, consider giving them away on Freecycle. The Freecycle Network mission is "to build a worldwide gifting movement that reduces waste, saves precious resources, and eases the burden on our landfills, while enabling our members to benefit from the strength of a larger community." It is a project of RISE, Inc., a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. While it is a national group, it is divided into local yahoo groups. Check out the East King County group on Yahoo! You may even be able to score something you've been looking for.


Don't forget Craig's List. Last weekend I was trying to give away an old 36" tube TV and an unused TiVo in my neighborhood with no takers. I posted it Sunday morning on craigslist.org, a simple, free, online classified directory, at a low price. Before noon (you know, before the football game) it was picked up and we had some cash in our pockets.

So, this weekend, consider moving out some of that old stuff (come on, you know you aren't going to use it again). You'll feel better about a cleaner space--especially with the holidays around the corner!