Friday 10 October 2008

Monster Mash


It's just about tthe middle of October, and for the first time not a word has been mentioned about Halloween. And that's a surprise. Usually we have two months of trick or treat planning, with me living in dread of having to be the escort the boy and his friends to make sure that only the right sort of mischief happens. The rot set in I think when we moved to the Forest, where the trick or treat culture was not widely accepted amongst the coiffured Essex parents ( presumably fake blood and rubber masks interfere with golden tans and bleached locks), so it was always a struggle to find accompanying children to terrorise (sorry I mean entertain) the neighbourhood and in any case, knocking on doors could be quite unrewarding in all senses.

Back in deepest, darkest Finsbury Park, it was an annual highlight with every house stuffed full to the gills with sweets and other delights so that a continuous trail of hideously made-up children could be satiated. In fact it was so busy that you could end up queuing at the best houses...it was easy to know which ones to go to as they always had a halloween lamp in the window...I suppose that's much the same as the red lights in the windows of certain houses in Amsterdam (I'm told).

Hopefully though we will still get to carve a pumpkin lamp which is always messy fun...several years ago, we bought a kit from Sainsbury's which had fantastically elaborate templates, and it's been used every year since to create weird and wonderful illuminations which take pride of place in the living room window until eventually they go soft and a little bit smelly.

On the other hand though, perhaps as the boy is now a teen, child like activities should be consigned to the memory bank just like the Disney movies which I no longer get to see (why wouldn't he come with me to see Wall E?). At least there's the DVDs to watch.

6 comments:

  1. Maybe the blonde hair and perma tans are their costumes?

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  2. Fair point...they scare the living daylights out of me...and there's evidently a shop just dwon the road from us that sells jeans at £1000+ a pop...that's pretty scary too!

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  3. all those rites of passage. Like doing you last halloween, or your last birthday party (of the childish kind).

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  4. £1000 quid jeans ! I'd want George Clooney to be coming round to take them off me and lick my legs for that money !!!

    Unfortunately the tax man says I have to meet the 31.10 deadline as I have foreign income and that can't be done on line, only on paper (well it did last year but due to my can't be arsedness I haven't checked if that's still the case !)

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  5. Asda has some fantastic Halloween stuff - I have taken photos! I mustn't - they've taken over quite enough blog/head space already!

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  6. the poet - if you've been to Asda, you may recognise the pic at the top of the post...straight off their artwork! I agree, you can have too much of Asda in your life

    AG - the tax man remains as unreasonable as ever! I'll ask George if you put up the thousand quids!

    ernest - yes rites of passage seem very important at this age and for the next few years, and again when you're older and start doing things for the last time...for different reasons

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