Hello, Halloween

Our first American Halloween, and it was extraordinary. We walked down some of the most picturesque streets in our part of town to see what was going on. This is a pocket of tree-lined streets with gorgeous family homes with front porches, big windows and book-lined front rooms, set far back from the street. Most, if not all, of the houses are elaborately decorated and lit with strings of lights. We have a favourite house on Oxford Road: it already looks the part with its thatched roof and little mullioned windows, but they went all out with strings of fairy lights shaped like pumpkins or bunches of grapes, animated witches holding crystal balls and tapping against upstairs windows, black cats with bright red eyes tucked into garden beds, tombstones in the lawn, and a large tarantula spider hovering over the front door. Some houses have eerie sound effects coming from the garden or out of animated figures, and ghosts hanging in the trees.

On Halloween night, there were jack-o-lanterns at nearly every front door, even if they hadn't put up any other decorations. They were my favourite sight of the festival. Glowing eerily with candles placed inside, some looked scarier than the others due to clumsy attempts at carving faces into a pumpkin.

In one of the streets famous for its Halloween cheer, posses of children lined up outside each house, ready to move towards the front door when the group in front moved on. The owners of the houses set up a chair in the doorway and didn't even bother closing the door between 'visitors'. Apparently you can spend anything between $50 and $100 in candy to hand out to trick or treaters. And then you have to shell out for house decorations, not to mention costumes. Not just for the kids: adults hold costume parties too. I have a friend who went to a cross-dressing soiree. And there were students on campus in costume too, including a girl in cat's ears and whiskers drawn on her cheeks sitting alone in my political science lecture at 9 in the morning.

The pumpkin cheesecake, since you asked, wasn't bad. Not big on flavour - just a hint of nutmeg and a very subtle pumpkin taste - in a mild tan hue. It's a frozen product, which no doubt affects the texture.