Halloween Pt. 3: A Haunting We Will Go...

The festival of Samhain was originally staged by ancient Celts to celebrate the dead. Candle holders were carved out of turnips, bonfires raged, and everybody drank a lot. Somewhere long the line, we replaced animal sacrifices with dressing up in fake animal pelts (or WWE wrestlers, or favorite Sesame Street characters) and knocking on doors for candy--and thank goodness for that. It was hard enough to hand out sweets and operate a camera while holding an 18 pound toddler--how would I ever have been expected to sacrifice a goat, too?

After an afternoon nap, the boys suited up again as Krypton's most famous survivor and Gotham's savior and braved the night--which is ordinarily behavior we don't encourage. This is downtown Toronto, after all...which we still regard as a safe city, but c'mon, we're not stupid...
Given that it was a Saturday, we expected the hordes of costumed beggars to hit the pavement a little earlier than usual, but it wasn't until darkness fell that festivities kicked into gear. Adelaide Street crawled with packs of strange creatures and shambling zombies for a good solid two-and-a-half hours, which come to think of it, is pretty much the state of our block year round...

Our new neighbours in 111 joined the spectacle by adding their own inflatable monster display to our usual macabre tableau, adding some much needed PG-friendly thrills to our charnel house of strewn body parts and reanimated corpses.

...and then there was the cat that played Santana...

Our pirate neighbours estimated somewhere in the neighbourhood of 238 individual trick-or-treaters in under three hours--not including new arrivals Carter and Nathaniel, who took a pass on the candy (although Carter did add a lollypop and glow stick to his utility belt) and were content to observe the bizarre pageant with wide-eyed awe until their usual bed time (which thanks to Daylight Savings Time, was about to be upset).

The display packed up nicely within minutes and before long, lanterns were extinguished, locks double-checked and Mom and Dad retired to the basement for take-out and a screening of the excellent horror flick "Drag Me To Hell"...although coverage of the H1N1 screw-up was the scariest thing we'd see all weekend...