Our Halloween night

Our front porch

Photo by: C. Mercado

It rained the day before, and it was a little chilly. But the forecast for Halloween promised warm weather. And as we walked out of the house that morning with Kara transformed into Dexter, the disguise she was wearing to school, complete with orange hair, and nutty, nerdy glasses, we were looking forward to the evening ahead. The previous night I had already stocked chocolate eyeballs, cut up chocolate body parts, caramels, lollipops, and other goodies, and Kara and I were both ready to greet the trick or treaters.

I managed to leave the office early, and as I drove through Westmount at around 6 pm, I could see all sorts of "creatures" trawling the streets with their goodie bags. The little ones were dressed up as fairies, cartoon characters, wizards, and held on to their mother's hands with their plastic pumpkin candy containers. The parents rose to the occasion, too, some had on horrendous looking masks and flowing robes. There was such excitement in the air, and the weather people were not wrong this time, it was a lovely cool evening. The kind where you would love to stroll around the neighbourhood, and this is exactly what everyone was doing.

When I reached home, my neighbour and landlady had plunged our front porch into darkness, with a few candles lit around, and our main door open. She worked very hard over the weekend with her two daughters to decorate the front of the house, and it was one of the scariest in the street. A large bat was hanging over the ceiling of the porch, and we had mummies and ghosts stuck to the door, and "cobwebs" everywhere! Even the small bush in front did not escape her hands, it was decorated with ghost shaped lights. I learned from the neighbours that once you put on Halloween decorations, the kids know that there are goodies available. The open door was proof of that.

Kara was waiting, still in her disguise, all excited over giving out candy. There was a steady stream: the younger kids were coming first probably because they needed to get to bed early, and they were followed by teenagers, and even adults! There was this cute little Ninja turtle, a boy not more than 6 years old. A group of well disguised teenagers also came to the door, someone looked like Charlie from Roald Dahl's famous book, I was really quite amazed at the effort that some people put into their appearance, and it was fun to watch.

Our chocolate eyeballs and body parts were the most popular, I was right to have have picked them up from the supermarket! By 9 pm, everything started to quiet down, and by then we closed our door.

Kara and her bowl of candies (Photo: C. Mercado)

Halloween as celebrated in North America is not a tradition that we are used to. In the Philippines, the end of October signals the arrival of All Souls' and All Saints' days, and while we do not dress up as ghouls or anything scary, I still remember from my childhood that this was also a festive time in the most unusual place, the cemetery.

The week before All Souls' day, cleaners would go to my grandfather's small mausoleum, clean it, make the whole place spick and span. The neighboring tombs will also be sparkling clean, and the local government would string lights throughout the cemetery to allow people to stay there late in the evening. On the day itself, my grandmother would be making steamed rice cakes, and other native goodies. Then after saying the rosary at my grandma's home, we would all troop to the cemetery to my grandfather's tomb.

There another rosary would be said, all of us cousins would sit through it impatiently, knowing that after that the adults would bring out the food and we will eat around my grandfather and chat with him like he was with us. The we would all clamber on top of the tomb, and play cards, my cousins and I with our aunts and uncles.

After a while, when we started getting bored, we would go around the cemetery collecting candle wax that dripped onto the tombs, yellow, red and white wax, and we would make them into balls. We would also meet friends and go around visiting the tombs of friends parents' and all others that we know. We would kneel and say a prayer at each tomb. I am scared of cemeteries, the mere thought of having so many people in one place really frightens me, thoughts of zombies often come to my mind. But this was a time when we were not afraid to be here.

This was tradition, at least in the province this was how it was, and we all looked forward to it.

This was the only time we celebrated death, or perhaps we celebrated the memories of our dead loves ones. This was our Halloween.