Friday 31 October 2014

planting potatoes

“I only want to live in peace and plant potatoes and dream!” The magical Moominvalley of Tove Jansson’s imagination contains all you need to know for life.


It's night-time and nearly November; tomorrow, all-hallows' eve. It's past potato-planting time for 2014, though certainly not past the time for peace and dreams.

Tomorrow I'll don my fabulous tu tu, bought on a whim 6 months ago, when I was shopping in Vancouver with a dear friend.  I'll need to rescue it from the dark corner in my closet where mistakes live! The store, JNBY, has disappeared from South Granville Street, so I'll wear it to honour the fun and funky clothes they had featured.



We haven't bought candy this year, rather we have a stash of 36 mini bags of Cheezies, hoping that only a few children come to our door so that we can indulge ourselves on the salty left-overs.

We have a huge off-centre squash sitting on our front steps, its  pink-orange body gleaming in the evening drizzle.  If I were to cook it, there would be gallons and gallons of soup. But I won't.



As a young child, living in Montreal, my Halloween costumes were often inelegant.  Imagine me as a 6 year old fairy princess wearing my mother's nightgown, tinfoil-covered cardboard stars stitched on. Now imagine this magical outfit with a bulky brown winter coat stuffed underneath it!  In the early fifties, in our neighbourhood, there was no debating with what our parents said.

My older sister and I would climb the stairs to the neighbours' front doors and then ask, in a sing-song voice,  'Charity please'. My friends on the West Coast laugh at this, however Wikipedia explains this oddity:  'In Quebec, children also go door to door...however, instead of 'Trick or treat' ....it used to be La charite s'il vous-plait'. 

We carried white pillowcases to collect our loot, eating as many of the loose jelly beans and other unwrapped candy as we could, because, once home,  our mother would make us throw them out.  



Our first stop was always to a neighbour's house where we were given magnificent homemade toffee apples.  En route we got handfuls of peanuts in their shells, wrapped Halloween candies that were sweet and chewy, Tootsie Rolls, pieces of Juicy Fruit gum, and the coveted chocolate bar.  (no mini bars then)

We carried small cardboard boxes to collect coins for UNICEF.

Back home, the routine was always the same.  Mum had a white sheet spread out on the carpeted floor of the entry hall.  Estelle emptied her candy to one side while I  eagerly spread mine to the other.  Then the sorting. The best part. Favourites were piled to one side and the few nickels and dimes were counted.

And then the bartering began!

'I'll trade you two boxes of raisins for your Tootsie Pop.'
Are you kidding? Who wanted raisins on this special evening!
After candies had been exchanged, we put our stuff into grocery bags to sample in the morning.  Then, on a sugar high, we peeled off our home-made costumes, double-brushed our teeth and went to bed.


p.s.
Wikipedia notes that in 2008, Halloween candy, costumes and other related products accounted for $5.77 billion in revenue.  (I'm not sure if this is in the United States or world-wide. The article doesn't specify. Either way, it's a lot of money)




1 comment:

  1. We too did the same pillow cases and trading. ..popcorn balls and toffee apples and I am 19 years younger than you. ..how times have changed. Here in Sooke all the young kids go store to store from 3-6 pm and then fireworks at the fire hall. ... trusting no one in their purchased costumes ~ Deb

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