Halloween

Halloween is a big event in Canada. The shops started selling costumes and decorations in September. At the beginning of The Fall many doors are decorated with wreaths and the locals get out their autumnal looking crockery, candles and linens. On 31st all the shops encourage the children to dress up and visit their stores so that they can hand out candy, crisps and treats (what a good sales tactic!), and many people really go to town on decorating the outside of their houses. The nice thing about here is that children can dress up as anything they like - it is not just about ghosts and ghouls and everyone dresses up, not just the children! It is a great way to cheaply re-stock the dressing up box, which in our case was pretty much non-existent to start with.

Halloween started for us on the Friday when both girls went to school in their first set of fancy dress costumes. Holly was a pumpkin for her school parade and Amy was a witch (a nice witch as she kept telling everyone - bless her). The little ones did a mini trick or treat and visited BFBS radio to sing a few songs. After school they changed outfits for the village children's Halloween party organised by the Prairie Rose Club. Holly went as Belle from Beauty and the Beast and Amy as a lion - yes a lion! Later that evening it was time for the mums and dads to party. Some friends who live opposite hosted a great fancy dress party. Their house looked amazing and some of the costumes people wore were spectacular. Much to my dislike Stuart wore the well known mask from the film Scream and I went as a lady vampire.

The following day was Halloween. I cut out two pumpkins which I proudly displayed at the front of the house. The trick or treating started at about 5.30pm. Stuart and I left mum in the house receiving visitors whilst we and the girls walked the village, knocking on doors and collecting ridiculous amounts of sweets. It will be Christmas before we manage to eat them all.