More Scary ... this time, Socks!

What? Doesn't everyone have Hallowe'en socks?

We have one lovely lady in our life who can't get enough of all things Hallowe'en. She loves the holiday and we love her so we made her Hallowe'en socks. Kroy. 3mm needles. With embroidered jack-o'lanterns. We're planning to do a lot more wool embroidery. This was fun! (And yes, she is one of the ones who appreciates our work. She'll definitely be getting more.)

We have noticed over our (considerably long) lifetime a growing trend to making much more of a holiday of Hallowe'en. When we were kids, it was more low key. We all dressed up in costumes. Yes. But they were mostly homemade concoctions. There were lots of hobos and ghosts (from old bed sheets). Witches were common. We once made a witch's hat out of black bristol board. Our best and most memorable costume involved a fake beard we made out of curls of paper glued to a mask.

We didn't really see the appeal of the holiday. We got candy at home. Not a lot but enough. And walking around the neighbourhood begging after dark wasn't our thing. Let's not forget that we were timid even then and fearful of the dark. We'd had our share of being bullied in broad daylight. It seemed silly to ask for more trouble after dark from enemies real OR imagined.

One memorable year, Hallowe'en coincided with the night of our regular Girl Guide meeting. Afterwards 3 of us set out trick-or-treating. We rang the doorbell of our first house and were horrified to see Dawn MacDougall (who's probably all grown up and way smarter now) reach out and "soap" the door screen. BEFORE the lady opened the door. We hadn't been given any notice that Dawn was packing (soap) or that she intended to deface any windows or screens. This was something nice girls didn't do and we were certainly nice girls. The lady was horrified, too. Soap is pretty hard to get off a window screen. However, we suppose she thought it couldn't have been us because who would be so bold (or stupid!) so she ponied up the candy.

Our 2 friends were hardcore Hallowe'en experts. They carried pillow cases for maximum candy acquisition. They gamely held up their pillowcases and the candy dropped into the abyss. We held up our pint-sized plastic jack-o'lantern which was fairly full by then with candy we'd got at the Guide meeting and the lady suggested we were pretty greedy and shouldn't we be calling it a night. Ah, yes. Good times.

 Happy Hallowe'en!!