Halloween in my Hood

In the days leading up to Halloween, Mallar and I began to notice that a number of our neighbours were erecting monstrous ghouls (grim reepers, skeletons, furries!?) and setting up other impressive engineering feats in preparation for the big night. As we inquired more about the extraordinary effort being put forth in our particular block (notorious for its displays, apparently) we were told that the woman just down the road from us had approx. 1200 trick or treaters last year. 1200! We had always planned to carve some jack-o-lanterns and give out candy but we had to go back to the store and stock up on more supplies in the face of the rumored traffic.


Joining forces with our upstairs neighbors, we set up a good show in the end (skeleton, spiders, webbing, pumpkins, tombstone, creepy soundtrack) but it was really tame compared to the goings on a few doors down from us. The home-owners a few houses over were in full costume and character -and being very scary. There were open flames on torches, smoke, big pots of potions brewing, skeletons sliding down pulleys to scare you, the whole works. It was madness. Our house became a de facto "safe zone" for younger children who were knee-knocking terrified of the goings-on down the road. wild...