Halloween

Amanda as vampire woman

One family really gets into the spirit of Halloween




"Trick or treat". It's 9:30pm and kids are still shouting outside the door, we've turned out all the lights but that doesn't deter the older kids. If they keep coming I expect we'll soon run out of candy very shortly.

Halloween is the most popular day for children in Canada (supposedly even more popular than Christmas). I can see why, they get to dress up and collect as much candy as they can lug home in their big pillowcases. No family tensions or unmet expectations to ruin the day. And this year in St. Albert it's warm - about 6 degrees. I remember so many years in the past, when Nick was younger and he'd go out trick or treating bundled up in layers of winter gear which completely obscured his costume. For some reason we always had our first snowfall on Oct 31st. But not this year, maybe we have global warming to thank for that.

Some families really get into the spirit of the evening. Here's some photos of one decorated house. Of course they were getting lots of attention from kids, most of the children loved the gloulish figures but two little girls dressed as fairies were quite distressed and didn't want to go anywhere near the house. I asked one boy if he liked the scary decorations. "Yes," he said, "and last year they had Freddie Kruger with his chainsaw answering the door. That was really cool." This year was a bit tamer, instead of Freddie, the family had a remote control ghost wandering around the pavement. I can't imagine having the fortitude to set this all up and then to pack it all away again. However the family was using the opportunity to collect money and food for the food bank which does seem to make the whole exercise a little more worth while. After taking the photos, I dropped some food in the boxes and came home to hand out candy. 

Most people still stick to carved pumpkins lit by candles. We didn't get around to carving our pumpkin this year so we just put the uncarved pumpkin on the doorstep!