Chapter 8: HalloWIN

Halloweeny Fun

In my PERSONAL opinion, Halloween is just about the best holiday of there is. Sure it has its downsides, but no one’s perfect, right? Some people are in it for the candy, some people for the parties, but I’m in it for the costumes. I love Halloween for the chance to make a REALLY COOL costume and walk around in public wearing it. Yes, I’m one of ‘those people’ who puts a lot of work into her costume months, sometimes years, in advance and shows up feeling almost overdressed. Which is what I did this year, too.

I’ve gathered that Halloween is pretty popular in Montreal, what with all the availability of night clubs for the partiers and ghost tours for others. What’s interesting in the UQAM dorm is that many of the students, at least the ones I knew, had never had a Halloween. According to my roommates, in France it’s looked down upon as a silly holiday for American children. Well, after the 31^st, maybe some of these students will bring Halloween back to Europe and spread the popularity.

While it’s not popular in France, this French-speaking residence still had a costume party on the night of the 30^th. I went to check it out and got unknowingly pulled into a costume/dance competition. Literally, I walked in with my costume on, they asked me my name (in French) and then we were all given some instructions which I didn’t realize were basically: “This is a costume contest and a dance off. Go for it!”

It was good in the end, though, because I won a gift card. I’m assuming it was for the costume and not my dancing skills (or lack thereof…). I’ve never associated Halloween with dance contests before, but then again it made for a new and fun combination.

Along with the Halloween party, Champlain took its students to the ‘Extreme Halloween Labyrinth’, which I actually didn’t get to go to because I was in the costume/dance contest. I’ll have to get a report about he labyrinth to post because it sounded like a good time. I just couldn’t be in two places at once.

All in all, Halloween was a good time here. I carved a pumpkin for my roommates and some of their friends from France, a process I don’t think they’d ever seen before, and after I baked the seeds with salt and cinnamon. Within about 12 hours they’d eaten all the seeds, which made me proud. I put up a “Happy Halloween” banner on the wall and some of those fake cobwebs. We bought candy and I brought various costume pieces for them, since I knew they didn’t have any of their own. There were some parties around the dorm, and I went to the one with the other Champlain students, who were sporting X-Men, Firefly, Secret Agent, and what I call ‘novelty’ costumes (i.e. one guy dressed up just like his roommate). It was a fun time!