First Ottawa Hallowe’en

 

       In the three years in my Halifax townhouse, we never once received visitors on Hallowe’en (yup, I prefer the more rare spelling with an apostrophe). This is our first year in our new home and we were encouraged after seeing our neighbours’ decorated yards that we would be receiving kids in costume. We decided to carve pumpkins and multipurpose our shower curtain (bought recently here on Etsy) as a window decoration.

 

The day before Hallowe’en, my husband picked up two local pumpkins ($3 each) from the ByWard Market on his way home from work. I had frustrating pumpkin carving attempts in my childhood, and my husband had never tried it, so I was a sceptical about how well it would go. My husband researched carving pumpkins online, and I found every sharp and scooping utensil in the kitchen. He brilliantly suggested the tools from my dissecting kit (a remnant from my university days). The pumpkins were great for carving. My ice cream scoop made fast work of the innards, which I saved to cook. I think the pumpkins turned out great. I hope that we have started a new tradition!

The tally? We had 110 children stop by our home. From my days of trick-or-treating, I understood that the kids want efficiency (in order to cover as much ground as possible). We were giving out chocolate and candy, and had divided our portions into coffee mugs, so it would be easier to dole out the treats. This was especially helpful when groups of 10 came knocking. Between visitors, we began playing Agricola, but given all the distractions, we didn’t end up playing a full game. While Hallowe’en trick-or-treating technically ends at 8pm, we kept our pumpkins lit until a bit after 9pm.  And we still had some candy left over for ourselves while we watched the horror movie,Triangle.