I'm about halfway into it this year. I was more into it the last two years in Vancouver, which were the first times that the kids really got to go into the neighbourhood to trick or treat. In Chicago, they only got to go to the daytime Halloween parade sponsored by local merchants, but I think neighbourhood trick-or-treating is so much more fun. At least usually. This year, it is rainy and I am fairly tired, but I'll try to have a good time. We might luck out and see if the weather breaks around 6 or 7 pm. (Edit: it didn't.) At least we have decent costumes for the kids, so that was less of a scramble than some years.
Why am I so tired (other than the obvious reasons)? I stayed up most of the night reading Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October, which was his final novel. It has its moments, particularly the focus on the familiars rather than the humans trying to open and close the portal that would allow the Elder Gods to come through to Earth. But it is a bit much trying to shoehorn in Frankenstein and his monster, the Wolf Man, Dracula, Jack the Ripper, Sherlock Holmes and some other witches and crackpots on top of Lovecraft's universe. Still, many people try to read it each October, and I only had one day left, so I figured I would attempt it. (It is already obvious I am not going to read Middlemarch in December, which is another new tradition, but maybe December 2015...) It's nice to know that I still can power through a novel in a day or two; I really will try to do that more with the books on the TBRD pile (and stop midway through more often if I am not enjoying a book -- there simply is no rule that I have to finish a book once I start it).
One new tradition that is sort of interesting (until it spreads and people start demanding it of others) is the teal pumpkin campaign where people who are giving out non-food treats like stickers and spider rings and so forth put out a teal coloured pumpkin on their porch. If they give out candy, it has to be without any nuts or even peanut dust. I have to admit, I generally feel the anti-peanut brigade has gone a bit too far in the schools, but I won't belabour the point. So if people want to adhere to these rules during Halloween, more power to them. But I am certainly not going to be shamed into avoiding giving out candy with traces of peanuts on it in my own home.
It's really interesting how worked up people get over Halloween. There is a contingent, particularly prevalent among the British, who find it an appalling import from the U.S. That is very much a minority view among Canadians, though there are certainly some who find it a distasteful holiday, full of excesses and bribing children with candy. (Of course, I generally felt that way about carolers in the U.K. (or the mummers in Philadelphia -- glad I never encountered them). I wonder if caroling is a bigger tradition in Toronto.) Then there are those that get very bent out of shape over inappropriate costumes of various types (either the ones that are too sexy or the ones that are ripped from the headlines like an Ebola containment suit). In a sense, it is good that Halloween still has this power to upset people, as it is one of the few holidays with any remnants of ritualized transgression left. There is not enough space to go into this in any detail, but the anthropologist Victor Turner is good on this (probably the most appropriate book is The Ritual Process) or my favorite in this particular line is The Politics and Poetics of Transgression by Stallybrass and White (this is simply a brilliant book that should not be overlooked).
Edit: I had a heck of a time getting home last night on the TTC, and the kids were climbing the walls, since I was later than I had promised. Anyway, we started trick or treating around 6:30, and it was raining pretty heavily. My daughter's umbrella was often getting in the way, and she would always overreact when somebody brushed against it. I nearly stopped the whole exercise after 15 minutes but she promised to calm down. We only went down 4 half-streets, but there were some very cool decorations around, which to me indicates this really is a neighbourhood. Some people take Halloween very seriously indeed around here.
There were more kids coming by than we had been led to believe, but we still had plenty of candy. My wife handled the biggest rush, but I took over when we got back in (and dried off). I think the weather really dampened the overall numbers. I had very few children come by after 7:30 and I think only two kids after 8. I shut off the lights at 9, and there weren't any frustrated kids (or teenagers) knocking, at least that I was aware of. I'll probably have to take most of the excess candy off to work (avoiding temptation and all that).
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