Trick

Hallo’Ween is wildly popular in Québec, even though it is an Irish and later English custom. Quebeckers are usually not doing the Anglophone holidays like Thanksgiving, but for Hallo’ween they seem to make an exception. Grown-ups are dressed up on the street and in shops, houses are transformed into scary places with carved pumpkins and lots of fake cobwebs and there are lots of parties. And of course there are the children, who dress up in a nice costume and go door to door to collect candy.

This tradition is totally unknown to me. being Dutch but Googling learned me that children who do ‘Trick or Treat’ are part of a long tradition.

“The custom of ‘trick or treat’ probably has several origins. Again mostly Irish. An old Irish peasant practice called for going door to door to collect money, bread cake, cheese, eggs, butter, nuts, apples, etc., in preparation for the festival of St. Columbus Kill. Yet another custom was the begging for soul cakes, or offerings for one’s self – particularly in exchange for promises of prosperity or protection against bad luck. It is with this custom the concept of the fairies came to be incorporated as people used to go door to door begging for treats. Failure to supply the treats would usually result in practical jokes being visited on the owner of the house.”

Since I don’t want practical jokes (ah well, maybe I do) I gave all children that dared to ring at our door and didn’t run away when the dogs started barking (and of course Pepe escaped once) a box of Smarties. A small box (it contains 11 smarties) but still I hope their dental insurance will be good. I don’t want to be a schoolteacher though. The sugar-high that all those kids have tomorrow will be too much to handle. Some carried garbage bags full of candy. Not these kids in the picture, they had small bags and were just doing it for the fun. I was happy to see some coloured faces in our mainly white, Francophone neighbourhood. And no, I don’t mean make-up.

Here you can read more about ‘trick or treat’.