Letting Your Inner Child Out, That’s What Halloweens All About!

When everyone gets into the action!

My best friend and I spent many years volunteering at our local Pool/School. They were always in need of people who would do things around the different activities that the Pool staff would put on for summer activities.

The Pool is part of the Recreation Department of the City of Toronto. As such they also have summer camps and activities for the kids year round.

There is never enough staff or money to do all the things they think up, so they look to volunteers to help out. Both Marie and I had young children, so it was a good fit. We saw what was coming up in fun things for the kids to do, and we got to participate with the whole group as well.

That Is part of what started my fun side of Halloween. Our children grew up in an age when the first not so nice pranks were being pulled on children. We had neighborhood bullies who would lie in wait for the first kids with sacks full of candy, then attack! Our kids, were also part of that first generation, that found unkind objects, meant to inflict pain, on children, in their loot bags.

Some sick minded people were taking the fun and fantasy out of Halloween for their own twisted minds. What should parent’s do when faced with this kind of unkindness? For a long time, they enrolled their children in our Pool’s annual Halloween Party.

All the fun was monitored, and parent’s were encouraged to stay with their children as they went from station to station, winning candy for their efforts. It was safe, there were no bullies, there were no surprises in their loot bags and there was time to have just some really good fun.

I think our answer to that scary time in Halloween history was perfect. The kids had more fun collectively and did not have to worry about anything except to have fun. The other nice part was that many kids and their friends enjoyed each other all together. It was them with all their friends, not just one or two!

For Marie and I, it was a great time to get dressed up, meet the parents, and see the kids our kids knew and have some fun too!

Grown ups are sometimes just big kids!

Along with the Parks and Recreation Staff, we would make our presence felt and be the people looking out for the little ones that misplaced their parents. If a child had a bump or bruise, we would be the first line of defense and first aid. The staff were busy running all the different stations that the kids would go to. Apple bobbing, placing the eye patch on the pirate, the haunted house, guessing how many spiders there are in a container, drawing your scariest and not so scariest pictures, having your face painted, for those who didn’t wear masks and a host of other “pit stops” were set up for the kids.

The haunted house was the best. With an auditorium and a stage, black lights were hung everywhere, bowls of wet noodles with goat cheese eyeballs would be eaten by some of the staff, just to gross everyone out! There were scary spooky noises all in the darkened area behind the stage, with appropriate groaning and scary giggles, creaky doors and windows and everything was done by the staff and volunteers. Little ones would go through the backstage maze with their parents in tow. I think even some of them got just a little surprised by how scary the staff had become.

All in all, the kids could stay as long as they wanted to and the parents were quite happy to let them all run off their excess steam within the safe confines of the school gym/auditorium. We never had any incidents that caused anyone distress, so for us (the volunteers) it was a rip roaring success.

The party for the kids and the parents was always considered successful as well. We would entertain over 100 children each year. The bonus was that because this is held at a neighborhood pool, many of the parents got to know each other through this activity. It built community and well being for the whole neighborhood. The costs for the family were minimal as well. I remember $5.00 being the admission price and the kids would go home with a loot bag that was easily worth twice that amount.

There were no bullies to fight off, no unnecessary worry for the parents and for many of the children, that was their trick or treating taken care of. Most of them would go back home, in costume ready to do their own street and then home to a nice warm bed.

I wish I had a picture of our last Halloween. Marie and I were dressed as babies. We had matching blue and white gingham dresses, a huge bib, with a massive soother hanging down the middle of the bib. We even had our own bottles which were nicely carried in our pocket, ready for a quick swish of orange juice when we got overheated. And the requisite bonnets. We were a sight for sore eyes. After the Halloween party was over, we decided to drop in on our newly elected Provincial Rep. His office was having it’s opening and we, all dressed up, decided to pay him a visit. An open house is after all “open for everyone!” We liked this representative, because part of his election platform was doing more for children.

The TV cameras and radio and everyone in the place just did a double take when we walked in. Marie is the less outspoken of the two of us, but that day, she did all the talking and then we disappeared.

I think they are still trying to figure out who those two “babies” were. Alas, it will remain a great memory for the two of us, as I don’t think we took any pictures (digital had not been invented yet)!

Oh well, we still laugh about our antics and now we just try to make our homes a safe place for all the trick or treaters.

Every year I walk around the neighborhood to see what I can see. I love our neighborhood because everyone is into a little bit of fun and they don’t mind putting on a show. It’s fun for the kids and the grown-ups too!