HALLOWEEN IS COMING TO TOWN!

Yes, in less then three months, Vancouver (and most of North America) will be celebrating Halloween and seeing as October 31st falls on a Friday, we can expect Halloween parties to be held in a variety of venues throughout the weekend! I personally love it when Halloween falls mid-week because no one will question why I am wearing a creepy costume of one sort or another for the entire week...

Throughout the city, Haunted Attractions will pop-up to lure us into their evil shadows in the name of charity and many people will spend hundreds of dollars and countless hours to transform their homes and their yards with all sorts of delightfully frightful decorations designed to frighten us. Adults and kiddies will dress up in all kinds of costumes as they attend many different events and parties. Then of course, on the big night itself, we will encourage our children to go door-to-door accepting candies from strangers in the name of Tradition: What a peculiar tradition indeed!

The irony of all this behavior this time of year is that most of us have absolutely no clue as to why we do this! Why do we do it? Are we cattle driven by retail and commercial influences? Do most of us have a suppressed sweet tooth that pushes us to send our kids on a dangerous candy collecting mission? Or is it some latent, dark desire to parade around in public as a drunken evil vampire cowboy pig?

Whatever the reason, we should take some time to educate ourselves and understand meaning of Halloween and to share that meaning with our children so that their lives will become richer with 'tradition' and not just sugar.