Lifestyle

halloween at home

November 2, 2014

Halloween is hands-down my favourite holiday. Last year, my friends and I had a riotous weekend of spooky fun and started what I’d hoped would be an annual tradition of zombie dinner parties. Sadly, I was away this year so I didn’t get to do any of that, but I made up for it by celebrating the traditional way: carving pumpkins, dressing up the porch and handing out candy to little monsters!

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As my Halloweens tend to be, this one was a scramble. I started at about 3pm, which is pretty late considering Trick-or-Treating usually starts at about 5pm in most neighbourhoods. Thankfully, I’d popped by the dollar store the night before and picked up my supplies so I could get right to attacking the pumpkin. Adam helped me lop off the top, but smartly decided to make himself scarce when things got messy. That’s ok though. If I could have avoided getting elbow-deep in orange gunk, I would have too.

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Unfortunately there’s no way to carve a pumpkin without getting dirty, so despite my aversion to goopy pumpkin guts I soldiered on.

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My icky efforts were finally rewarded with…this guy!

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Once I had washed up, Mom and I tackled the rest of the porch decor. She made creepy, tattered tendrils from black garbage bags to hang over the door, and I liberally dusted the front gate with cobwebs and spiders. The “bouquet” of dead branches was also Mom’s contribution – a handful of twigs she’d just clipped off our tree – which I topped it off with a big glittery orange bow.

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And just in case it wasn’t obvious enough that we had candy, I quickly made a banner from construction paper, white paint and some ribbon.

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The finishing touch was lighting my Jack-O-Lantern, and setting him up with a few more candles for ambiance. Mom supplied an old pot and some vines for flair, and just like that we were in business!

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Even before the kiddies came around, we had a few (adult!) neighbours stop by to take photos. Not a bad response, considering it was such a last-minute job and that we spent less than $20 including the pumpkin and carving kit.

Speaking of last-minute, once the porch was done I only had about 15 minutes to get myself ready. It was a bit challenging for me this year since I’m currently travelling and didn’t want to buy a costume (I could only find skanky versions of anything I wanted to be) so I had to make do with what I had in my suitcase. Thankfully I have pretty theatrical taste in clothing – I actually had a hot pink sweater and bright purple pants. All I had to buy was some purple eyeliner plus a pair of cat ears, et voila: a $10 Cheshire Cat costume.

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And that was my super thrifty Halloween-in-a-Hurry. I can’t wait till next year, even though it sounds like my quaint decor is going to get replaced with some seriously spooky stuff…Adam’s already talking about a fog machine and zombies in the flower bed. Time to practice my scary face!

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