Halloween

BOO! Hi ya folks. Seems the technical difficulties have sorted themselves out. I have full use of all the letters on my keyboard. Eeeeeks! So there, now that I am able, I thought I would write a little blurb about Halloween, you know, in the spirit of the season.

I have only been trick-or-treating as an adult one other time. A few years ago, I took the son of a friend out. It was a neat experience. It is fun to view Halloween with glee and wonder again. This time around I was the dad. I hung out in the back, I watched, I gossiped with the other neighbourhood parents. We complained mostly about the cutting of school bus service, the ineptitude of such and such crossing guard. We gabbed about who was getting home renovations, who was selling their house, who lived here or there.

I spent much of the night (after the smaller of the trick-or-treaters could walk no more) with my ten-year-old, but more specifically, hanging back in the shadows, with an older mother (grandmother, mad stepmother, aunt?), who wore a multi-colored 80's classic K-Way jumpsuit. And a very chatty Asian (Korean) mom. Isabelle was her name, she was shocked and awed at how generous North American folks were. 'In Korea we would never share with other people's kids, we take care of our own, thats it, Halloween and then Christmas, this place is awesome'.

Horn of plenty indeed, but isn't that the point? It is harvest time, it is time to share in the spoils... or was that what Thanksgiving was all about? As for Christmas... winter solstice? Oh ya, right, baby Jesus.

Back to Isabelle, (most resist the urge to eviscerate each and every holiday as rabid consumerism) she was a riot. The neighbourhood gossip told in a thick Korean accent, she made Halloween fun. I can only hope I can make it into one of her gossipy yarns. 'You are Emily's dad? Sam is in same grade. Emily is the crazy one, the funny one. Emily is allowed to do things.' Hmmm, I can't tell if that statement was a judgment of our parenting style, or a hat tip to the fact that we are raising a very independent and confident little girl, I dunno? I simply let Isabelle talk as we walked and walked and walked. The goal, oh course, was for Emily to fill her whole damned treat bag. Keep going!

We wandered until our feet hurt. Emily's bag full to bursting, it was time to head home, it was time to take stock of the night's bounty. Take stock Emily did, she had out pen and paper, she wrote up a detailed inventory of the night's spoils, all the way down to the last mini-Mars Bar and package of Rockets. Halloween, I will have you know, is serious business