It’s October 29, just two days before “trick or treat” time. Parents are checking the weather forecast to see if the weather this year will be better as their kids make the rounds in Toronto’s Riverdale neighbourhood.  Given the number of families with younger children, it is no surprise that our streets have many houses with at least a bit of Halloween decor.

On our early evening walks with our dog Skuggi, I’ve been snapping photos of some of the decorations festooning lawns, porches, and doorways. The Chinese factory workers who churn out the mostly plastic and often tacky stuff by the cargo container load for export – what must they be thinking?

Skuggi and I walked the four or five streets off Broadview from Simpson up to Bain.  Some last-minute decorating has only added to the collection of scary figures, pumpkins, skeletons, ghosts, skulls, cob webbing, witches, tombstones, etc that make up one-half of the festival.

We’ll have to wait to see the other half – the costumes worn by the trick-or-treaters as they make their way past the skeletons and pumpkins with their treat bags open. New possibilities have been added to the Zorro, the cowboy, the Indian, the ghost from my youth!

Halloween this year falls on a Thursday.  Friday morning will be a live experiment in  “sugar highs” as some students at Withrow Ave. Junior Public, Franklin Community, and Sacred Heart will be a bit more squirrelly than usual!

From the Celtic Samhain to the Christian All Souls Day on November 1 and the Hallowed Evening the night before to medieval Britain… Halloween has deep roots, even if what we see these days owes as much to Hollywood and American popular culture. The digital magazine Sapiens has an article titled How Halloween Has Travelled The Globe provides some interesting context.