October 30, 2010
Halloween has always been my least favourite "holiday."
I can't wrap my head around the idea of dressing up children to go door to door begging strangers for food.
Nonetheless, I always made sure the kids were well costumed, usually with whatever we had around the house, but there was always the mad rush after school to get home and bolt down their supper so they could get outside as soon as possible.
Emily LOVES Halloween.
She plans on going out until people actually refuse to give her candy on the grounds that she is simply too old to go out trick or treating.
One year, with the help of a good friend, Em went out as a suitcase.
Which was a great idea until she had to sit down for reasons little girls have to sit down.
Em's second Halloween was a most confusing time for her.
She understood that you went to people's door and they gave you things.
What she didn't seem to understand was that you couldn't actually take anything you wanted.
Hence, upon coming to the front door of a lovely house at the bottom of Smythe Street, we were greeted by a lovely older woman.
And Em, who up to that point, was only interested in the candy, spied a cat.
And with a speed only exhibited in two years olds super-charged with Halloween candy, she dashes into the house, and grabs the cat.
The next few minutes were a mad cap cacophany reminiscent of a Benny Hill skit, minus the half dressed young girls and the oggling Benny Hill. A giggling two year old, a wailing, hissing, really pissed off cat, an older woman yelling, "Oh! Oh! Oh!" and me racing around this woman's house trying to capture Em, who saw my chasing her as an added bonus to an already exciting evening.
When I finally managed to grab her, she clutched the hissing, wailing, pissed off cat close to her little chest and yelled, "MY KITTY!"
The home/cat owner was in a state of utter panic, worried that my feline loving two year old was going to abscond with her cat, tucked in Em's candy bag among the chocolate bars, chips, suckers, gum, etc.
Em was NOT happy when I removed the poor, traumatized cat from her hot little hands, apologized to the shocked and flabbergasted older woman and hoisted Em under my arm for a less than graceful exit.
Clutching her candy bag, Em kept insisting the kitty was hers, while I combed the neighbourhood looking for Meredyth and Keith who saw this as an opportunity to backtrack and revisit houses looking to acquire some additional booty.
When the kids informed me that my escorting services were no longer required on Halloween night, I saw it as a mixed blessing.
On the one hand, I didn't have to go with them, wandering around in the dark pilfering candy from strangers.
On the other hand, they were going out with their friends.
And the only thing more terrifying than having your kids go to other people's house is having other people's kids come to yours.
Sugar gorged horomonal teenagers travelling in packs.
Ummmm. . . .
Careful reflection and analysis have revealed two possible reasons for my dislike of Halloween.
One, my mother was about as excited about Halloween as I am.
She worked long days as a nurse, catering to the needs of her patients, listening to doctors, dealing with kvetching family members.
By the time she got home, got dinner ready and the dishes done, the last thing she wanted to worry about was Halloween.
In fact, I argue there was one Halloween where she actually forgot it was Halloween, although she would deny it with her dying breath.
Consequently, she pushed me out the back door wearing a pink sheet with freshly cut eyeholes, accessorized with a green glow stick.
Two, I lived in a rural area.
Meaning Halloween was nothing more than a forced route march.
Houses were so far apart, you actually didn't know if you were coming to a house until you caught the faintest glimmer of a low wattage porch light.
You'd walk and walk and walk and walk, only to be rewarded with a paltry chocolate bar given to you by a crusty, unshaven man, annoyed that he had to move out of his Laz-y-Boy recliner for the third time that evening, therefore missing the crucial denoument to Miami Vice, only to have to answer the door for a pink-sheeted ghost with a glow stick wrapped around its neck.
While walking on the dirt shoulder of the highway on which our humble abode was housed, drivers actually slowed down to double check that they weren't seeing the result of an alien invasion but rather a poorly put together vision in pink with neon green trim.
THAT was it.
The next Halloween, I revolted.
Either my parent's drove me to Oromocto, to go door-to-door begging among military neighbourhoods full of houses so close to one another you weren't sure whether or not they were actually separated.
Or they bought me the equivalent of all the candy I would have scored if they had driven me to Oromocto.
Because I was no longer willing to traipse around our rural hamlet for a chocolate bar that wouldn't provide enough sustenance to get me back to my parent's house.
Oromocto was a mecca for rural kids who, like my brother and me, boycotted the long nights journey into more night in search of an airfilled bag of chips.
Four miles for a bag of air with one chip inside.
I don't think so, thank you very much.
The loot we scored.
While my rural loving parents were passing out candy at the rate of one chocolate bar every 90 minutes, the military families in Oromocto were privy to a frenzy of candy loving, sugar hyped kids attacking their houses like sharks after chum.
We came home with so much candy, my father actually confiscated some of it.
I'm positive it was recycled as stocking stuffers at Christmas time.
About the only warm memory I have of Halloween is the thrill of coming home, turning your loot bag upside down and through the mound of goodies.
We always made piles, while shoving chocolate into our mouths.
There was the don't-touch-this-or-I'll-cut-your-lips-off-pile, the I'll-eat-this-when-there-is-nothing-else-left-pile, and the I-think-these-people-were-on-crack-pile.
And finally, the cut portioned out for my father, out of respect.
My dad, paid off, given tribute, with a portion of the loot garnered from the publically sanctioned door to door freeloading of his children.
I wonder what they would call this in the old country.
Now, I spend Halloween walking from the kitchen to the front door and back to the kitchen again, while trying to mark papers and keep the dogs calm.
Tikka is always more than willing to greet the candy cadging critters.
Frankie is always more than willing to chase them off our property.
The cats are always locked upstairs.
Caterwauling, meowing, hissing and spitting ensue until they are released from their prisons and allowed to cavort through the house.
Stephen and I manage to eat far more candy than is necessary, an issue I raised during my first visit at Simply for Life.
I asked what we were supposed to do to prevent the usual face stuffing food fest we have come to look forward to and loath in equal parts.
And this is when I was, yet again, reminded that having 8 university degrees between the two of us is actually not much of a sign of intelligence.
The SFL advice.
The golden nugget of knowledge that will prevent Stephen and I from eating our body weight in candy.
Buy something you don't like.
ALL THESE YEARS we've been buying Halloween candy we liked.
Not because we wanted to give it away.
But because we wanted to simply spend the evening eating said candy with reckless abandon until we reached a candy coma and were subsequently buried under the weight of all the discarded wrappers.
Buy something you don't like.
Gum then it is.
D'OH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Title Lyric: This is Halloween from the Nightmare Before Christmas Soundtrack
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