HALLOWEEN IN NAKUSP 2012

COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE PLASTIC PUMPKIN

My kids have been looking forward to this day for a long time. It’s loomed large in their minds to the extent that Christmas has almost been forgotten. The costumes. The candy. The trick or treating. The pumpkin mutilation. The horror houses. The candy. Everything.

 Everything that they have not done in Australia because there we don’t celebrate this day at all, despite the late attempts by desperate Australian retailers.

MEGAN'S 'AUTHENTIC' CARVED PUMPKIN!

Now, particularly for Australians readers who don’t know or care about Halloween let me let Wikipedia explain;

  “Halloween or Hallowe'en (a contraction of "All Hallows' Evening"), also known as All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly celebration observed in a number of countries on October 31, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows (or All Saints). According to many scholars, it was originally influenced by western European harvest festivals and festivals of the dead with possible pagan roots, particularly the Celtic Samhain. Others maintain that it originated independently of Samhain and has Christian roots.

Typical festive Halloween activities include trick-or-treating (also known as "guising"), attending costume parties, carving pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing, visiting haunted attractions, playing pranks, telling scary stories, and watching horror films.”

Many of the girls from my year 11 Social Studies class - btw they are the frog's eyes!

So Halloween day at school involved many dressing up in costume although not quite as many as I imagined. And it should be said that, at the high school at least, the very great majority of dresser-upers were female as the following photos demonstrate;

My Principal, Sue and the secretary, Alice, getting into the groove of Halloween

Pat and Jan on Halloween Day

"So, She's a dog!" - one of my year 12 students

On Halloween night Tom got suitably attired in a cloak and half and half face paint representing I believe a skeleton and a zombie, and went off with a couple of his mates for trick or treating. 

Pumpkins out the front of a house mean it's fair game for trick or treating

Millie and Matthew joined friends of the same age for a shorter guided tour of trick and treating around the town. I strolled along with them sipping a beer. I enjoyed it. Both the beer and the kids joyfully running from house to house, their bags quickly gaining weight from the generous gifts of chocolate and other candies. Soon it was over and it was amazing the amount gathered in a small amount of time.

Matt and Millie scared by ghosts

Millie - not her real nose - as a witch!

 

Tom struggled home a little later and his haul was even huger! A full pillowcase was a bulging half full and it emptied over half of his room’s floor. My kids had walked around the town of Nakusp but had probably taken larger steps down the road to diabetes…………..