So, have you got your 12 foot animatronic skeleton set up for the second biggest celebration of the year? Home Depot’s selection includes the classic Anatomy 101 style of skeleton as well as a 13 foot Jack Skellington from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. If skeleton’s aren’t your thing, consider the towering 13 foot ghost featuring a LED, colour-controlled body. Witches? Pick your poison! Along with eating up any available storage space, this sort of holiday decor will run you about $400. That’s probably about $390 more than what you used to spend on Halloween, what with that single, solitary jack-o-lantern on the doorstep.
Pick your poison!
The solo carved pumpkin on the steps is so, so, so not in step with the season anymore. More than Christmas, Halloween has become the seasonal showcase of festive creativity.
Halloween, according to Stats Canada, is now the second largest commercially successful ‘holiday’ in Canada. Amazing, when you consider it’s not even a statutory holiday. We seem to be spending more and more on Halloween despite the fact, according to Statista, the global data and business intelligence platform, the number of Canadian trick or treaters has been trending downward since 2000. Still, we’ll drop about $500 million on candy this year, with Reese’s Pieces leading the pack, followed by Coffee Crisp, Smarties, Caramilk, Aero and Kit Kat. The average Canadian budget for joining in the revelry – candy, costumes, pumpkins – will rise from around $68 last year, to $88 this year, an uptick verging on 30 per cent. As much as this is an increase, it’s less than what Canadians were spending on the big night back in 2019. Prior to the Covid, Canadian households dropped about $97 to celebrate the 31st of October. And – boo! – there you have it. The single biggest indicator that we’ve yet to fully recover from the pandemic.
Homespun Halloween has been gobbled up by Big Pumpkin, with animatronics, costly costume rentals and expensive Disney themed front lawns. But let’s say you were a Halloween purist. How would you mark this day on your calendar? Well, to begin with – no pumpkin. You’d have a turnip. A carved turnip, lit from within by a single candle.
Halloween traces its beginnings back to the 1600s.
Halloween traces its beginning back to the 1600s in the Irish fens, or marshes. A legend arose involving a character known as Stingy Jack. The lore has it that this character tricked the devil into changing his form. This trick may well be the smoking gun where today’s costumes are concerned. There was lots of back and forth between the devil and Jack but, ultimately, the devil won and Jack was condemned to wander the earth with only a wee burning ember to light his way.
Now the thing with marshes is that they emit something called ignis flatuus – false fire. As a result of decaying plant matter, methane gases seep out of the bogs and are prone to spontaneous combustion. The locals took these eerie apparitions to be the glow from Stingy Jack’s dim light on his lonely, autumnal peregrinations. If you combine this with the Gaelic tradition of samhain, where people went from house to house in search of hospitality, you may have stumbled upon the birth of trick or treating. In pre-industrialized Britain, metal lanterns were a luxury few could afford. In lieu of a lantern, turnips were hollowed out to protect a costly single candle as people set about on samhain. Why a turnip and not a pumpkin? Well, pumpkins were a new world vegetable and hadn’t yet reached Britain. It wasn’t until the Irish immigrants to North America arrived in their new home that the pumpkin would be adopted. And I’m thinking the same goes for animatronic skeletons ….
This week’s question for readers:
WHAT ARE YOU? A HALLOWEEN HERO OR A HALLOWEEN ZERO?
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Submissions to last week’s question:
CARS, BOATS, BIKES, CABINS – DID YOU NAME YOURS?
Your story on car names brought instant memory of the day my Dad drove up to our Montreal duplex with a well used 1965 Pontiac Parisienne dull grey/beige paint, family-sized front bench seat. Having only ridden the bus or taxis as a young boy, I was overjoyed at the “new” car. The decision was made that “Ole Betsy” was fitting for her name. We would make regular road trips to visit family in Kingston with a car lunch of egg sandwiches and Mom’s baking. Many joyous trips ensued until the sad day when my Dad informed the family “Ole Betsy” needed major repairs, which we couldn’t afford and she was taken away . I cried like I had lost a dear family member, which for me , she was!
John Voiles
My first car, a MINI of unknown year found in Regina, was my first love. He was called Basil but generally known as ‘Bas’. He got me through my university years in Calgary. Next, a new 1979 MINI, carried the name forward – Basil Too, but also called ‘Bas’. Then a long stretch of no name-worthy cars until a 2007 MINI Cooper S6 speed. What else but SeBAStian, also known as ‘Bas’. My current car, a 2018 MINI Clubman (4 door variety) known as BASset, because he’s a little bit longer – but always called ‘Bas’. Do you see a theme here!
Mel Eastley
Wifey’s GMC Sierra Elevation has the name “Ellie” It’s short for Elevation!
Stephan Krieg
As kids we named many things and my husband and I have expanded on this. We have boats: dinghies, kayak, canoe and a commuter boat of varying vintages with names, but why stop there? When I bought a 40+ year old Lifetimer 14 foot aluminium boat with a 20 hp Yamaha outboard my husband came up with the name Pelican, as it is the boat we use to put out crab and prawn traps and while a solid and stable boat, a hard ride, like riding in a tin can. We also name our cars . Our ccurrent vehicle is a 12 year old Toyota Highlander named Grady, but we have had Esther, Clover and Bucky, to name but a few. There’s also Daisy, our small apartment washing machine at the cabin, Doris, our beloved dishwasher, Milly, the Miele vacuum cleaner. Most of the kid’s toys and all of the dogs’ toys have been named – how else can the dog find the toy you are requesting if the toys aren’t named?
Irene Wooten
In 1973, my 18 year-old second cousin, Eduardo, came to stay with us in Kelowna as a refugee from the coup in Chile. We spent time together when we returned to Vancouver in 1978. Shortly afterwards, Eduardo acquired a 1960 MGA which was named “Arthur”. Not to be outdone, I, too, acquired an MGA, which I named “Horace”, as this was the name given to me while I was in utero. Eduardo also had a diesel VW rabbit which was named “Bernie”. Don’t ask. After the MGA I owned a Rabbit convertible named “Ermintrude”, named after my mother’s middle name. We currently drive a Hyundai Vera Cruz – quite a sedate lady who could only be called “Vera”. She reminds of the English detective Vera: sort of rounded at edges, a bit dumpy, but always gets there. My Smart electric convertible has only managed to be named “Smarty”.
Dr. Peter Munns
We didn’t name our new cars, but my Dad was often found tinkering on his antique car – and we kids decided it should have a name. We would say my Dad had “a mistress named Goldie”, a yellow 1928 Rolls Royce Roadster. We thought that was cute, but my mother probably didn’t appreciate it. Worse, my Mom liked everything new and wouldn’t be caught dead in an antique. Better for me to ride shotgun with Dad. And Mom also liked those roomy Pontiac station wagons, and we would toss all the small kids in the back.
Ellie O’Day
We, too, had a car named Betsy. Ours was my mother’s 1950 Ford. I don’t know the model, but it was maroon, had a stick shift and four wheels. My mother drove us about in that buggy for years. So long that, by the end, you could see the road whizzing by through the worn floor-board by the pedals. Betsy was the only thing bestowed a nickname. But we did refer to our dad as Mathilda when he donned an apron and washed the dinner dishes. Says a lot good about Dad, but could be considered sexist today. Is it sexist to have called our car Betsy?
Lynn Kagan
My first car was a Ford Cortina. We were grad students and scraped together the cash to buy it. I called it Connie Cortina. It turned out to be a prescient name: it became obvious after numerous breakdowns that we’d been conned into buying a lemon from an unscrupulous second hand car dealer who saw us coming.
Madeleine Lefebvre
Growing up, my family didn’t name our cars, so I’m not sure why, when I got my first car at 16, that I needed to name him. But I did: Lenny, after a guy I had a crush on. All my cars since have had names: Jeremy, a handsome soap opera character; Randy, as in Travis, my favourite country voice: and ThelmaLouise -you can probably guess her namesakes – who is now 20 and doing just fine. My husband had Tigger, Bart, Nigel (a very sporty Mini named after a British race car driver), and finally Luna (she’s ‘moon white’). Sometimes it takes a few days or weeks to find the right name, but once you do, you can’t ever again just call it ‘the car’!
Chris Emery
Yes, I’ve had a personal relationship with ALL my vehicles. I’m the youngest of eight, so when I got my first bike, her name was STAR. I believe connecting with your vehicle is important; they protect you, they are there when you need them and, if you treat them right, they are always there. My ‘21 RAV4 Prime is named Storm. My ‘06 Suzuki SV1000S is Tulip, from the TV show, Preacher Perfect.
Tom Tranter
Growing up in Vancouver in the 1960s, my family had a sky-blue 1958 Vauxhall named “Trixie” which replaced an earlier one of that name. I don’t recall any seatbelts in that car and my brother and I would stand on the back seat so we could see where we were going, or check out who was following us. In 1964, we acquired “the Wizard”, a spiffy two-tone green rambler sedan, and Trixie became my mother’s car.
Nora Eldred
My father passed away when I was a teenager and my mother, who didn’t drive, sold the family car!! Consequently, my sisters and I never learned to drive. At the ripe old age of 28, I finally learned to drive my 1978 standard HondaCivic hatchback. Not an easy task, as I lurched around Winnipeg, testing other drivers’ patience. Everything went wrong with that car and hence its name, Harold the Horrible Honda. Next car was a beautiful brand new Honda Prelude, navy blue with cream interior, named Priscilla, the Pretty Prelude😂😂
Eileen Jasper
My partner, Denyne, and I have always named our cars: hers has always been Linus, after the Charlie Brown cartoon character, and her personalised licence plate bears that out. Needless to say, the cars have always been blue, like Linus’s blanket. She is now on Linus #6.
I had Terrence, the Toyota Tercel, many years ago, and now have an orange Subaru CrossTrek, named the Flying Naartjie, an Afrikaans word for mandarin! Though rather startling as car colours go, it’s actually very handy – I never have to remember where I parked it. I just go out and look for the orange car!
Carlie Holland
Yes I’ve always named my cars- there was Mike the Mini, Freda the Ford, Harriet Honda to name a few. Though, my latest car was named by my sister – a Kia Soul called Noddy, named after the Noddy books of our childhood by Enid Blyton.
Long live Noddy!
Lesley Diotte
Qualicum Beach
I have a remotely controlled electronic caddy to carry my golf clubs around the course. Occasionally I get so engaged in conversation that I forget to hit the “stop” button and it wanders off. Once, when it started to dance around in circles, a friend commented that it looked like R2D2 from Star Wars. So R2D2’s name is now imprinted on the body of the machine. Some of my friends actually talk to it – “R2D2 don’t go in the bunker” or, “watch out for the tree R2D2”.
Maya MacLennan
Christmas Eve, 1953, England;I Father came home with an ancient (1935) black Standard 10 – our first motor car! It was quickly filled with suitcases and boxes of Christmas presents and off we went to my grandparents. When we reached the end of our road, the car was listing heavily to the right so the luggage and parcels had to be rearranged. Henceforth, I, the 7 year-old, had to sit behind the driver. It was a slow journey with a top speed (downhill) of 30mph. Thus, the car was christened The Tortoise. Long journeys required several large bottles of water for topping up the radiator on reaching the summit of any hill. In its last days, the Tortoise could only manage steep hills if all the passengers got out and walked. The replacement car, a much-younger beige Ford, was named the Camel, because it could drive for miles, up hills and down dales without top-ups from water bottles.
K. Angela White