Halloween

Halloween is serious business in this corner of the world and to be honest, Halloween isn't my favorite holiday but it got a real boost in the arm this year.  The past few years Halloween has felt enormously rushed - I don't know if it was because we would trick or treat earlier in the day or if, since I was teaching, I'd tired of the actual day well before it's official arrival.  Nonetheless, we had a lot of fun.  Decorations have been up for a couple of weeks in various forms - islands in roundabouts have caution tape and skeletons and pumpkins hanging from their trees, the mall had scenes where you could have your picture made, faux spider webs encompassed staircases.  So, I had an inkling that Halloween Day would not disappoint.  I was struck as we walked to school and as I ran errands by the number of adults who began their day donning a costume too!  We saw Luke Skywalker (complete with light saber), a butterfly princess, and several folks in witch hats on our way to school.  The cast of Star Wars was rounded out as I ran errands and I also encountered a creepy clown, 2 hippies, Luigi, Zombie Woody (from Toy Story), a zombie ninja, Pikachu, some blue sort of person with a large hat (though not a Smurf) and - my personal favorite - Steve Erkel - all in grown up form...before noon even hit!

 

Mall Fun :)

Halloween Day started as soon as we woke up - naturally.  All the kids dress up at our school which was really fun.  Lydia decided the giraffe costume she had picked out weeks ago was no longer her favorite so she was a ballerina and Henry was Iron Patriot.  I got to be 'that mom' and made fun snacks for Henry's class (Lydia's class got to make their own in class - rice krispie treat pumpkins) and spent the early part of the morning assembling 50 'spiders' out of cocktail sausages and potato sticks.  The older kids of the school transformed the 4th floor of the school into a "Haunted Hallway" and spent a good deal of their day serving as actors in the school-wide haunted house.  Lights were off and strobe lights did their dance as other classes in the school took their walk through the haunted house - there were screams and groans and spooky music and everything.  The little ones came through with the lights on and music off, if they wanted to, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't grateful that neither of my kids' classes made it to the haunted hallway because I'm pretty sure I'd have had roommates last night if they had.  Nonetheless it was fun.  AND - almost every class in the school was ushered to the mall about a block from school, along with their costumed teachers (Henry's teacher was a penguin and Lydia's teacher was Minnie Mouse and the principal was the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz) to go trick or treating!  How cool is that???  They came home with some serious loot before we even got started with our evening festivities!  And, boy, were the evening festivities something else...

Once we got past the fact that Lydia no longer wanted to be a giraffe and she embraced it, and Henry donned the Iron Patriot mask I had driven to West Van to purchase while they were at school since the one we'd ordered wasn't quite right, we were off (despite a missing Iron Patriot glove).

 

It was a damp, crisp night with leaves scattered on the sidewalks and dark was falling fast.  We headed up Robson Street (the main thoroughfare in our part of town) to Bute Street where we'd heard the decorations were the best.  Now - for my US friends reading - 'decorations' does not adequately describe the reality.  There were actual vignettes - some that took up half a block - of sideshows complete with folks in costume, homes that looked like pirate hideouts, costumed folk on porches tickling the heads of unsuspecting passersby with a net on a pulley up in a tree.  A-MA-ZING.  This was Halloween on steroids!

This is one of the homes where we trick or treated - cool, huh?

 

We fortuitously ran into several friends from Lydia's class and we all toured the West End together in search of gobs of candy and it was great fun.  The surprising part was the fact that even though there were scary looking costumes and some of the houses had spooky decorations, the community's embrace of its children and their wonder seemed to remove any fear factor from the night.  The kids were delighted!  Candy spewed forth - and they even earned extra at one house where you had to dance for your candy - it was a beautiful scene to see kids and adults who were complete strangers, in assumed personas, boogey-ing to "The Monster Mash".  We meandered on and came to an intersection where we heard shouts of, "Henry!  Henry!"  And several of Henry's classmates came over and they inspected each others 'take' from the night and it hit me.  Here we were - barely two months in our new hometown and home had become so much more than just a physical address.  We have found community in relationships with people who will be dear to us long after our address changes again and I was warmed to my bones.  And I was tickled that we had such a 'normal' holiday experience - enjoying the excitement of Halloween, running into friends in an area where we live, go to school and walk every day.  We got home, gorged ourselves a bit on the night's treats and headed for bed.  And then, as if on cue, the fireworks started!  Oh yes - Halloween here is indeed a call for fireworks and the kids watched, mesmerized (or catatonic maybe as they were exhausted) as they sporadically burst outside their window.  It was the perfect end to a great family night and we were full to overflowing with gratitude for life leading us here and teaching us new things and putting us in this part of the city among some great people.