blogcutter | Entries tagged with halloween

This morning was our day for the early morning biweekly grocery expedition.

As tends to happen in early November, no sooner have we finished with Halloween than the Christmas supplies start to populate store shelves. And this year, we are being urged to shop early, though in rather different ways from what we may be used to.

It was rather sad seeing the amount of leftover Halloween candy at Loblaws. I guess that's down to families being asked to skip trick-or-treating and parties. While individual households no doubt bought some for their immediate bubble, you only need so much for that. And with so many people working from home now, they don't have the option of bringing leftovers to work so their colleagues can help themselves. I guess one good thing about it is that people only buy the candy that they know they and their family like and can eat. So there's less waste, perhaps, and no worries about your kids finding razor blades in apples and cyanide capsules in candy.

I did pick up a few supplies for Christmas baking, though goodness knows to what extent we'll be allowed to share it with others - we may have a very full freezer come January! On the other hand, I've not yet seen any nice crates of mandarins or clementines, only the small bags.

Generally the shelves were fairly well stocked today, although they were still rationing their paper towels. They also had some bamboo-based toilet tissue (not sure if I can call it paper, since they were boasting that it contained no trees - though isn't bamboo a tree of sorts?)

One thing I usually look forward to in November is wandering around craft shows and church bazaars. I guess there won't be any of that this year, but in the interests of supporting local crafts people, I may do some of my gift shopping on sites like this one:

https://ottawaartisans.com/collections/

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: home
Current Music: Frosty the Snowman

This year, perhaps for the first time since it was made, "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" will not be airing on any of our network TV stations. Apple has bought the rights to it.

So in the very year that people are being discouraged from trick-or-treating and Halloween parties in favour of home-based celebrations, family TV-watching sessions are also becoming a thing of the past. Charles Schulz must be turning over in his grave.

A lot of people like Charlie Brown because they can relate to a perpetual underdog. Many identify with Linus too. With the Coronavirus sweeping the planet, we feel as if the rug - or the blanket - is being pulled out from under us. We're stressed, we're anxious, we worry about what tomorrow or next month or next year may bring.

But pumpkin worship? Well, I'd have thought that would be a definite no-no for dedicated Christians and other monotheists. So it was actually quite a pleasant surprise to see this strong endorsement of the cartoon on a Christian site:

https://www.crosswalk.com/special-coverage/halloween/beautiful-lessons-in-its-the-great-pumpkin-charlie-brown.html

Saints alive! The author has opened up a Pandora's box here. I don't expect to get saved any time soon but there is indeed power in the gem of hope!

Happy Halloween and Samhain, everyone!

Current Mood: amused
Current Location: home
Current Music: Take a walk on the wild side

Yesterday I speculated that we might spend our Halloween watching a DVD of Rocky Horror Picture Show on DVD. For over 40 years now, midnight or late evening screenings of the movie have been popular with independent movie houses, particularly at Halloween. But since we entered the red light district around here, these places have all been closed again for at least a few weeks. Being a born-and-bred Ottawan, I'd be really sad to see our local repertory places, the Mayfair and the Bytowne, close permanently.

Their owners are pretty creative in coming up with ways to make that happen, although creative pursuits are often not that great at paying the bills. But I was encouraged by this venture whereby a local artist, Heidi Conrod, is selling pandemic-inspired art prints and donating half the proceeds to the Mayfair:

https://mayfairtheatre.ca/31141-2/

I hope this is just the first of many bright ideas for keeping modern-day movie palaces afloat!

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: the screening room
Current Music: Let's do the time warp again!

Although kids on the Ottawa side of the river are being urged not to go trick-or-treating this year, today we adults got to visit our local park and get a treat of sorts - a bag of tulip bulbs, courtesy of ReMax. It was especially welcome since there don't seem to be a lot of garden centres open this year. Bulbs seem to be in short supply at most of the likely retailers, although we did manage to get a few from a Canadian Tire in the east end that offered curb side pickup.

The weather is co-operating here today - sunny and temperatures in the low teens. We went for our daily walk around the neighbourhood. Even without trick-or-treaters expected, many families are really going all out on the Halloween displays - and Halloween is still two weeks away!

As for how we'll spend Halloween? Maybe we'll have our own private screening of Rocky Horror or some other seasonally appropriate flick. And I've no doubt there'll be chocolate!

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: home
Current Music: Tiptoe Through the Tulips

Back to school. Back to other activities. Halloween. All those things will be happening in the next couple of months and they will happen very differently from how they occurred last year and in years before that.

First, back to school. In Ontario, a majority of parents are opting for in-person schooling for their kids, although a significant minority (in the 25 to 30% range last I heard) have chosen online-only. Supply teachers have some major and very valid concerns about safety, since they tend to go to many different classrooms over the course of the school year. Parents are concerned that the Ontario government has not provided funding for smaller classes, which obviously means more teachers (or at least responsible adults who can oversee them). Wouldn't the obvious solution be to cut class sizes in half (or at least significantly reduce them) and assign the supply teachers to a particular class for the entire year? Classroom space might still be an issue, but the boards of education have portable classrooms they could press into service and the mayor has offered unused space in city buildings as well. Outdoor classes may be an option for part of the year, but obviously there will be days when inclement weather precludes that solution.

Apparently the Girl Guides are back in business too. They plan to hold outdoor meetings this year although it seems door-to-door cookie sales may not be possible. Guides and Scouts have always been, to a great extent, about outdoor activities like camping - in all kinds of weather - so maybe that will work.

And speaking of door-to-door... there's Halloween to consider as well. Will there be any trick-or-treating this year? Masks are very much a part of Halloween but bobbing for apples had become a bit of a no-no even before COVID-19. Halloween parties? Maybe not, although Vera Etches is on record as saying that things like costume parades might be possible. Unwrapped candy or treats? Another no-go area.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Location: virtual classroom
Current Music: Monster Mash

When buying goodies to hand out at the door, do you buy what YOU like, in case there's a lot left over? Or do you deliberately buy stuff you DON'T like, so you won't be tempted to overindulge? Or do you go out or turn all the lights off on Halloween, leave the treating to your neighbours, and hope that you don't get targeted by tricksters?

Around our place, there aren't usually very many trick-or-treaters. But there are usually a few - occasionally MORE than just a few. And since the neighbours were always kind and generous with our kid during her trick-or-treating years, it seems a bit mean-spirited to just abdicate the treating role. So what we've been doing the past few years is buying bags of the little packets of raisins. Parents approve, since their kids already get plenty of the totally unwholesome stuff. And many kids these days seem to be allergic to peanuts or chocolate, but not usually to raisins. And it's easy to use the leftovers - if not for eating directly, then for putting on our cereal in the mornings or baking into things. Mind you, while the kids were getting wholesome snacks on our doorstep, the adults in our household were doing the couch-potato thing, watching Coronation Street and enjoying some fine dark Ecuadoran chocolate from the Farmers' Market. How's that for hypocrisy? Well, at least it was fair-trade chocolate!

Now I'll discuss costumes. Above all, they must be politically correct. People seem to get themselves in all kinds of hot water with their costumes - before they even start bobbing for apples (something I've no doubt is also considered politically incorrect and unsanitary these days)! Blackface (and probably golliwogs too, though they were not in any way meant to, um, denigrate, folks of any particular race), KKK and SS outfits are all BIG no-nos! Remember poor Prince Harry with his Nazi attire? Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the whole point of a costume was to pretend to be something you're NOT! Bad-guys in themselves are not considered taboo in most circles. Why should it be thought to be in appalling bad taste (if not a manifestation of a hate crime) to dress up as a Nazi or a terrorist or a pedophilic priest, but okay to dress as a pirate, a devil, or a typical 21st century stereotype of a witch?

Another concern I heard on the news recently was about scanty costumes that overly sexualize little girls. Now personally, I would say that overall, Wonder Woman (for example)is a reasonably good role model and I wouldn't have a problem with my little girl wanting to dress up as her. On the other hand, if it's a case of trick-or-treating outdoors in most parts of Canada at the end of October (where snow at Halloween is not unheard of), then a costume based around a bathing suit is hardly going to be practical - they don't tend to fit very well over children's snowsuits!

Then there's those orange UNICEF boxes that used to be so ubiquitous amongst trick-or-treaters when we were kids. Halloween in general used to be mainly for kids and with UNICEF being a children's charity, it seemed a natural fit that children getting all manner of bounty for themselves at neighbours' doors should be counterbalancing their greed a bit by collecting in aid of the starving children in (substitute famine-area-du-jour here). Nowadays, adults have become fearful that kids will be mugged for the few pennies (themselves also soon to be obsolete) in those boxes. Is there justification for those fears or is it helicopter parenting run amok? I don't really know, but I do lament the passing of a more innocent era.

Current Mood: curious
Current Location: the dungeon
Current Music: Monster Mash