Crystal Coast Gardener: halloween

Halloween has gone the way of zombies.

It's pretty much dead, but still keeps on truckin'.

When I was a kid, halloween was awesome. Nothing could stop us kids from dressing up and going door to door.

And I'm Canadian, remember. Our first [substantial] snowfalls would usually occur mid-October.

Did a little [4 feet of] snow stop us from candy??

No!

We'd begrudgingly put on full snowsuits under our costumes and trudge out anyway!

I can't find a pic of myself in one, but this is a good idea of what we looked like (because all Canadian kids share this experience)

I don't think the Wimpification of Halloween is due to the kids, but the parents. It always comes down to the parents.

Parents, parents, parents...(I'm drawing this out to give you parents time to build some outrage against my comments...blog posting isn't fun without a little outrage.)

My mum is a Halloween veteran. With three children born in three different decades (1968, 1973, 1981), she's been through it all.

Making costumes, walking with us door to door (when it was -30C on the occasional Halloween night, she'd drive behind us so she could have us warm up on the run), buying candy for other kids, decorating, dressing up herself to make it more fun...

And you know what? She was probably sick and tired of doing this crap every year (I think she likes it again now that she's had a few years rest). But she made the effort, because it made us kids happy.

Because that's what moms do, dammit!

When we got old enough to go out with our friends on Halloween, it was a big deal. I think I was about 9-ish when my friends and myself were allowed to go out to get candy in groups in our neighbourhood.

We'd take our pillowcases (no fancy candy containers for us, pillowcases had more candy-capacity!) and troop around for a couple of hours and come on home tired and happy.

I didn't even really like to eat candy at that time. I gave it all to my brother Kurt. But I had fun getting it!

Do parents even let their kids go out trick or treating by themselves anymore?

I'm betting not. These are the days of mall trick or treating. Which I think is totally lame.

Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame.

There were just as many 'dangerous' people in the 60's, 70's and 80's as there are now I'm sure. I survived without being kidnapped into someone's basement or finding razor blades in my candy.

Which is a total urban myth that news stations still warn parents about.When was the last time you saw a news story about a kid ending up in the hospital from candy poisoning?

These days we're more likely to get salmonella from lettuce grown at a tainted corporate farm operation...

And I'm not just talking about the parents of trick or treaters. I'm talking about adults in the general population...the ones that turn all their inside and outside lights off and hide in the backs of their houses hoping that no one rings their doorbells.

I think there are people who don't feel like buying candy for strangers. I think that there are people who are tired of getting less and less kids coming to their door every year and don't feel like shelling out money for candy for nothing and having to eat it themselves. I guess I can't blame them all really...

Anyway, I still carve a pumpkin every year. I don't think I've ever missed a year. I don't ever do anything elaborate, but I try to make them different every Halloween.

I enjoy digging the slimy guts and seeds out of a pumpkin. I like the smell of raw pumpkin guts. This year was the first time Chuck and I have tried roasting pumpkin seeds in the oven, and they were delicious.

I asked Chuck to come up with a design for my pumpkin this time, and this is what he came up with:

We live in a housing development which until recently wasn't very developed. In the last couple of years it's comparatively exploded.

We expected a few kids this year. Not a lot because we still live in a rural-ish area, but a few.

Got the pumpkin on the porch, and got the candy bowl ready.

Our first visitor was the kid of some old friends of Chuck's. Shelley's so damn cute

After that....almost nothing.

We eventually thought we wouldn't get any more kids, but we saw an SUV slow down in front of the house at about 7:30, and two more girls popped out and came to the door. They got a big haul from us, because we knew we probably wouldn't get any more kids after that.

And we were right.

Chuck and I spent the rest of the evening gorging ourselves on 'fun-size' chocolate bars...