Hallow Won't

 

Move Hallowe'en?? Horrors!

There’s an underground rumbling that suggests the scariest night of the year be moved from the last day of October to the last Saturday of October.

WTF?

Granted, the rumbling comes from disgruntled parents and teachers who are inconvenienced by managing children jacked on sugar the day after Hallowe’en, but it also indicates a lack of understanding about the day itself and why it exists in the first place.

“Hallowe’en” is the contracted form of “All Hallow’s Eve”, “All Hallows” being November 1, otherwise known as “All Saints Day” on the religious calendar.

Did I say “religious”? Yes, and I meant to say it. And I’m not apologizing, either. I may not be conventionally religious, but I do enjoy the holidays and observances associated with (and some say stolen from) annual celebrations of spring, fall, and winter.

I wonder why no one bothered to Christianize the summer solstice.

I digress.

Hallowe’en happens on October 31 for a reason. It’s not about the candy. Okay, maybe now it is, but originally, it was the last chance day in the year for evil spirits to work their nefarious magic on innocent souls before the saints came marching in on November 1. The dead rose to walk again, witches cast wicked spells and Satan roamed free. Folks dressed up to fool said evil spirits – and their earthbound minions – on the premise that they wouldn’t be recognized and the spirits would bypass them. That’s where the tradition of Hallowe’en costumes come from. In truth, I’m unsure where the trick-or-treat thing started, though it’s likely rooted in the same occasion, and candy was not the anticipated outcome. Successfully dodging the demons was.

The Easter argument doesn’t support moving October 31, either. Easter happens in coincidence with Passover, an event dependent on the lunar cycle, which is not attached to a static date. Candy wasn’t the anticipated outcome at Easter or Passover, either, by the way. I’m not at all sure where chocolate fits into history though, being a fool for Cadbury Creme eggs, I do appreciate its presence in the modern era.

If it hasn’t become obvious by now, I’m all for keeping Hallowe’en where it is. If anything needs to change, perhaps getting rid of trick-or-treat is the answer. After all, I’m not the only one who’s been buzzed on Hallowe’en candy since August!

Rockets - Yeah!

 

Now that Hallowe’en is a thing again – okay, maybe it never stopped, but during two years of COVID restrictions, it seems like everything did – the age-old debate is back: what’s the best Hallowe’en candy?

Tiny chocolate bars don’t count. First, they’re a given favourite. The only argument is which one is the best. Mars bars were tops for a while, then Crunchies took the prize, now I’m a huge (or would be, if I ate every one I see) Aero fan. Second, tiny chocolate bars are ubiquitous, a fact of life and school lunches in this era of dwindling seasonal treats. By “dwindling”, I mean much of what was once only available at select times of the year is now available all year, so it’s hard to get excited about a clutch of little chocolate bars when whole boxes of the darned things are in stores 24/7. The manufacturers try to make them special by issuing scary shapes in spooky wrappers, but I doubt the kids are fooled either.

I digress. Sort of. Back to the best of the Hallowe’en treat bag:

Stick gum? No, thanks.

Chiclets? Better than stick, but still, no thanks.

Bubble gum? Geez, how many kinds of gum are there, anyway?

Lollipops? Meh. The green ones are okay, but ...

Molasses kisses? A taste I neither appreciated nor acquired until adulthood. Now I love them, dark sticky ones and whipped chewy airy ones alike. If only they were available all year.

Apples? Straight to compost.

Skittles, Starbursts and Sour Patch Kids didn’t exist when I was trick or treating, nor did gummies of any ilk. I like gummy Life Savers now, but am lukewarm to the others.

Nope, my second favourite treat as a Hallowe’en kid was a roll of Rockets. Hands down, the best candy in the bag. Pure sugar with no real flavour, they are little buttons of pure sweet/tart delight – very much a mini-version of the SweetTarts I also loved in childhood. I could get SweetTarts at the corner store year-round, but Rockets were strictly a Hallowe’en thing. I hoarded them like a miser, they were off-limits in trades unless I had a friend who disliked them, in which case I’d happily surrender whatever my buddy wanted in return. If I ate them one at a time, I could make a roll of Rockets last far longer than a little box of Smarties.

A strange aside: I hear Rockets are called Smarties in the States. Their version of Canadian Smarties must be the sub-standard M&Ms ... but that’s a debate for another time.

Nowadays Rockets, like tiny chocolate bars, are available all year – if you know where to get ’em. And I do ... or Ter does, and so a constant supply resides in our kitchen pantry. I have a stash in my desk drawer at the office, too, and it’s not unusual to hear the telltale wrapper crinkling at some time between eleven and one on any given day, be it a weekday or a weekend, week in, week out, month in, month out, all blessed year. My favourite Hallowe’en candy is a seasonal treat no more.

I can’t decide if I’m happy about that, or a little sad.

Holidaze

For years now, people have complained about Christmas showing up in October. That’s never bothered me, probably because I love Christmas, but this year I’ve noticed something I’m sure was not the ordinary until now.

There used to be space between holidays. Sometime after school started, harvest froufrou would kick off Thanksgiving (breathe), then Hallowe’en (not an “official” holiday but you’ll see my point) would be proclaimed (breathe), then Remembrance Day (breathe), then Christmas would get into gear, followed (followed, mind you) too soon by Boxing Day and New Year’s, after which we’d get a few weeks off before being confronted with Valentine’s Day in early February. Retailers gave consumers a break between reasons to consume, but that no longer happens.

Hallowe’en candy is in stores just after school starts. Thanksgiving is celebrated with little to no preamble, probably since it’s counter-intuitive to promote acquiring more stuff at a time when we’re meant to be grateful for what we have. Poppies are on lapels before Hallowe’en – no discredit there, as November 11 is hardly a goldmine for the veterans – but this year I saw my first Christmas commercial mere hours before the first trick-or-treaters emerged on October 31. Geez. That blew my mind. I mean, I try to restrain my Yuletide spirit until November 11, and I believe the rest of the world should do the same thing.

What’s that, Ru? The rest of the world should wait until the veterans have been remembered before we launch into the annual consumer frenzy like good little lab rats? And where were you on the first weekend in November, hmmmmmm?

Okay, okay. I confess—I was at Canadian Tire, topping up on twinkle lights and stopping at Starbucks for a steamed eggnog. Sue me. I have lately been so overwhelmed by the bad news and negativity in the world that I was desperate for something to make me happy. Well, Christmas makes me happy. The lights, the food, the music, the convivial cheer that seems more prevalent among strangers—in the face of death and destruction and people behaving badly, I’m all for indulging in a little premature holiday spirit.

I digress. Sort of. As Dr Seuss pointed out, and contrary to what the big eastern syndicate would have us believe, Christmas doesn’t come from a store. And it doesn’t matter anyway, when I know what’s coming on December 24: the first Boxing Day sale ads, mixed in with New Year’s sale ads, bleeding into Valentine’s Day diamond commercials in January, blurred by Easter treat blurbs in February, Mother’s Day flower adverts in April and so on and so on ...

Believe me, I’m into the holidays this year, and because I’m into them, I want to slow down and enjoy them—even the commercials (the celebratory food and drink ones, not the appalling Black Friday ones)—before the marketing moguls snatch the Yuletide season from my grasp.

Merry Christmas in advance!

Halloween Hangover

It’s November first and the world is choked. Mother Nature is throwing fits worthy of a screaming toddler: heavy wind, pounding surf, sporadic bouts of pouring rain—and then a rainbow appears as if to apologize for the tantrum.

Ter comes home from the grocery store. “Boy, is everyone out there cra-bee!” She’s been a little grouchy herself, on the heels of bolting a Bucky’s “Frappula” yesterday. It tastes like a Viva Puff mallow cookie and drops you like a drained corpse when the sugar high wears off. I suspect that a few folks have indulged in the seasonal specialty this weekend, and if they haven’t, the honking horns and crashing carts at the store today must be the result of those “one for you, two for me” trips to the candy bowl last night.

Then there’s the time change. Spring forward, fall back. I got the saying right, this time, but it hasn’t stopped me from feeling disoriented and easily annoyed … though the latter may be attributed to the bowl of caramel/cheese popcorn I devoured with my chocolate tea yesterday afternoon.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

Because it’s fun, silly.

Last week, the office held a cake walk that turned into a charity bake sale when no one else in the building turned up to play. I looked at a table piled high with cake, cookies, muffins and more, and was truly grateful that the only gluten-free item was the pineapple upside down cake I’d contributed and had no desire to reclaim. Oops, but there were the mountainous meringues donated by someone who had promised to bake but ran out of time—I’m not a huge meringue fan, but these babies came with blueberry whipped cream and one of my evil office fairies coerced me into splitting one with her (for a good cause), hence the buzz in my ears that began last Thursday.

As Nic would say, Blerg.

Tomorrow, everyone at work will be sick of candy and bakery treats. This will not stop me from refilling the Vader bucket with the last of the Rockets, treacle kisses, lollipops, jelly beans, tiny Mars and Snickers bars that I bought to get us into the Halloween spirit. Neither will it stop me from indulging if I get too stressed—it is the workplace, after all.

I am advised that the Red Cups are back at Starbucks, launched at opening time this morning to get us all into the holiday spirit and onto insulin drips after New Year.

Buckle up, folks. ’Tis the season!

Boo Yah!

When I was a kid, it was all about the candy. I didn’t play dress up, so my costumes were culled from the clothes rack of least resistance. The family didn’t decorate (few families did, in those days) and we didn’t carve pumpkins, either. Once I outgrew trick or treating (i.e, when I could afford sweets year-round), the spookiest night of the year lost its appeal.

Then I met Ter. Some of her happiest childhood memories involve October 31. She carved pumpkins, she dressed up, she read Tales From the Crypt; if it was creepy, ghostly or chilling, she was right there. (Ironically, she has never read Stephen King.) The only Halloweeny tradition we had in common was candy and watching Charlie Brown.

Over our years together, she has carved an annual jack o’lantern and done a little home decorating. One year I got an idea for my own pumpkin, so now I carve one, as well. We decorate for fall, and slip in a few spookables as nod to the ghosts. We’ve always lived in an apartment, so we’ve never handed out candy – the one exception being 2011, when we were briefly the sole residents of a little cottage on a shady street. Ter dressed as a barefoot witch and happily doled out treats by the mittful to an assortment of neighbourhood kids. I’ll always remember tiny little Layla, a toddler princess on her first trick-or-treating expedition, who was so dazzled by Ter’s costume that she forgot to collect her candy; her dad had to turn her back around so Ter could dispense the goodies.

Last year, we did nothing. Real life was scarier than the occasion could ever be – we had just moved house for the second time in two years, I was recovering from the worst cold of my life (until this year), and poor Ter was coming down with it. We carved no pumpkins, left the decorations in the boxes, and sniffled and coughed our way through a single viewing of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. I did manage to attend a magic lantern show hosted by our (then) new neighbours, and had such a good time that we were delighted to be invited back for it again this year.

Ah, this year. We’re both healthy. We’re settled into our new home. The weather was clear and cool, and the magic lantern show awaited. We stopped down to let the neighbours know we were heading out on a short flânerie, but would be along for the show, then we did what I love to do best of all: we walked through the ’hood, criss-crossing the street, sidestepping packs of chirping children dressed as superheroes, princesses, ghosts, goblins, pirates, vampires, Darth Vader and Jedi knights, mummies, teddy bears, ballerinas, witches, everything but the kitchen sink. I brought along the Canon to test its night-shooting powers, but mostly we marvelled at how some folks get so into the occasion that they dress up their homes as much as themselves. Truly, every kid should hunt treats in an old Victorian neighbourhood.

 

 

 

 

People turn their yards into cemeteries. They park zombies on the porch. Skeletons hang in darkened windows. Tortured screams and maniacal laughter drift through the thickening fog (yep, this close to the ocean and tendrils were crawling). The pumpkin art is amazing. Ter took me to what she calls “the magic house” – a stonework studio as well as a residence. The artist who lives there has created a captivating world of light and spirit that has drawn her there on foot since we moved here. The yard last night was … well, I took more pictures there than everywhere else combined:

 

 

An hour later, and we were cozied in the dining room downstairs, sharing with friends and neighbours the annual magic lantern show – glass-painted slides on a projector from the 1850s with a hilarious play-by-play from the presenter and colour commentary from the audience. We laughed and talked and had a wonderful time with warm and wonderful people. Last year was a boo hoo. This year was a big boo yah!

SPOOKABLES!!

beware beware

of things out there

that creep and thrill

your blood to chill

 

a slanted eye

a scary smile

a booming “BOO”

hearts pound a mile

 

trick or treat

you may be meat

for hungry ghosts

you’re beans on toast

 

behind a mask

is no disguise

ghouls hunt by scent

not by their eyes

 

a foggy night

flickering light

what’s that, a head?

the taste of dread 

 

candy sweet

on vampire’s tongue

if you don’t run

you’ll soon be gone 

 

hollow laughter

trailing after

running blind

don’t look behind 

 

on Halloween

it’s safe to say

where’er you go

you will be prey

BOO!