{"id":168,"date":"2006-11-03T23:32:29","date_gmt":"2006-11-04T07:32:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/archives\/2006\/11\/03\/that-was-halloween\/"},"modified":"2006-11-03T23:32:29","modified_gmt":"2006-11-04T07:32:29","slug":"that-was-halloween","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/2006\/11\/that-was-halloween\/","title":{"rendered":"That was Halloween"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hal\u00adloween<\/a> is a big deal here in Van\u00adcouver, at least if you have chil\u00addren. In New Zea\u00adl\u00adand (at least while I was grow\u00ading up) we did\u00adn\u2019t cel\u00adeb\u00adrate Hal\u00adloween at all so it was\u00adn\u2019t until I got to Canada and had chil\u00addren that it became part of the yearly cycle.<\/p>\n

Hal\u00adloween here has three parts: dec\u00ador\u00ada\u00adtions, cos\u00adtumes, and events. The dec\u00ador\u00ada\u00adtions are the easy part, because I have neither time nor inclin\u00ada\u00adtion to go over\u00adboard. Jack\u00ad\u2019o\u2019lan\u00adterns are com\u00adpuls\u00adory; I bought a bat\u00adtery-oper\u00adated pump\u00adkin from a vari\u00adety store a couple of years ago which is re-used every year, and Tim and our son carved two pump\u00adkins on the week\u00adend before Hal\u00adloween (if you carve them too early, they go mouldy and mushy before Hal\u00adloween arrives, des\u00adpite attempts at pre\u00adser\u00adva\u00adtion<\/a>). Then with assor\u00adted dol\u00adlar-store-style extras such as plastic bats and spiders, and sheets of plastic prin\u00adted with witches and skel\u00adet\u00adons, our son and I made it obvi\u00adous that we were going to take part in the Hal\u00adloween tra\u00addi\u00adtion of trick-and-treat. If you put up dec\u00ador\u00ada\u00adtions in Van\u00adcouver, then you\u2019re expec\u00adted to also hand out candy on Hal\u00adloween; if you don\u2019t want to hand out candy, then you don\u2019t put up the dec\u00ador\u00ada\u00adtions. Since this is a film town, lots of people go over\u00adboard and the loc\u00adal paper lists the best ones to go and see, much like they do for Christ\u00admas lights later in the year. All too much for me to do, although it\u2019s fun to see what people come up with each year and to guess which film they might be props from or inspired by.<\/p>\n

Cos\u00adtumes in my fam\u00adily were easy this year as well; our son got a mask a couple of years ago that he loves, so with that and a dark sweat\u00adshirt and dark trousers he was set. The baby got a red sleep\u00ader and some red dev\u00adil\u2019s horns to match; the horns had black fake fur at the bot\u00adtom which lent an incon\u00adgru\u00adous touch on her almost-bald head and most people thought she looked cute rather than scary. Tim and I did\u00adn\u2019t dress up for Hal\u00adloween although Tim did get face\u00adpaint for the Parade on the 28th. Vis\u00adit\u00adors to the door were mostly dressed for sports (ice hockey, soc\u00adcer) or as fair\u00adies or Dis\u00adney-style prin\u00adcesses. We mostly have young\u00ader kids show\u00ading up, so there were a few anim\u00adals as well.<\/p>\n

Tim went drum\u00adming at the Parade of Lost Souls<\/a> on Sat\u00adurday 28th; I made some acerbic com\u00adments about bal\u00adan\u00adcing it with the found souls, but All Saint\u2019s Day isn\u2019t cel\u00adeb\u00adrated (or, I sus\u00adpect, even known about by many people) so one could won\u00adder where the Lost Souls go to be found. Van\u00adcouver does have its pagan-cel\u00adeb\u00adra\u00adtion side, and it was out in full force on that night. Many of the cos\u00adtumes were ima\u00adgin\u00adat\u00adive and com\u00adplex, some simple. The baby was fas\u00adcin\u00adated by it all and not the slight\u00adest bit scared by any of the appar\u00adi\u00adtions passing in front of her stroller. I did\u00adn\u2019t see any polit\u00adic\u00adal cos\u00adtumes here, although I gath\u00ader they\u2019re pop\u00adu\u00adlar in the US<\/span>, par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlarly in an elec\u00adtion year. Choos\u00ading the wrong cos\u00adtume can, how\u00adever, cre\u00adate problems.<\/p>\n

Hal\u00adloween even\u00ading itself was dry, for\u00adtu\u00adnately. I got the candy a couple of weeks before, a total of around 150 mini\u00adature bars and pack\u00adets (about a quarter of the usu\u00adal candy bar size). The gro\u00adcery stores here must sell a heap of these at this time of year; no child or par\u00adents will accept home-baked stuff or fruit, ever since vari\u00adous threatened or actu\u00adal pois\u00adon\u00ading incid\u00adents. Even this year, some idi\u00adot in Van\u00adcouver put Tylen\u00adol in bags<\/a> for kids, so par\u00adents always have to go through the bags and check everything their chil\u00addren were giv\u00aden. Any\u00adway, our son went off with the neigh\u00adbours and their chil\u00addren, after being so excited he could barely eat any din\u00adner, about 6 pm. The pump\u00adkins were lit, the lights out\u00adside on, and the first trick-and-treat\u00aders arrived about the same time. Some\u00adtimes I like to ask what they\u2019re meant to be, the num\u00adber of kids who can\u00ad\u2019t give a coher\u00adent answer is remark\u00adably high, they tend to be con\u00adcen\u00adtrat\u00ading on the candy and mind\u00adful that they need a cos\u00adtume to get it than any\u00adthing else. Friends with a baby who live in a condo vis\u00adited us that even\u00ading; vis\u00adit\u00adors were greeted by one or two babies depend\u00ading on the tim\u00ading. It was fun, our son arrived home around 7:30 pm as the num\u00adber of trick-and-treat\u00aders arriv\u00ading was declin\u00ading, our vis\u00adit\u00adors took their baby home, we blew out the tea-lights in the pump\u00adkins, turned off the out\u00addoor lights, and sent a happy boy off to bed (after that first bit of candy, of course). He now has enough candy to last him until next year \u2014 we ration his candy to one piece per day (two if they\u2019re small).<\/p>\n

Now the Hal\u00adloween dec\u00ador\u00ada\u00adtions have been taken down and packed away for next year, the dis\u00adcarded pump\u00adkins are in the com\u00adpost bin, and the stores are full of Christ\u00admas dec\u00ador\u00ada\u00adtions. The cycle continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hal\u00adloween is a big deal here in Van\u00adcouver, at least if you have chil\u00addren. In New Zea\u00adl\u00adand (at least while I was grow\u00ading up) we did\u00adn\u2019t cel\u00adeb\u00adrate Hal\u00adloween at all so it was\u00adn\u2019t until I got to Canada and had chil\u00addren that it became part of the yearly cycle. Hal\u00adloween here has three parts: dec\u00ador\u00ada\u00adtions, \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cThat was Halloween\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}