They say that when there’s a festival coming up, you can feel it in the air. I’ve never honestly understood why everyone celebrated Halloween, a spooky holiday, but when it was coming up this year, I could certainly feel it in the air, and it made me excited to understand it better.
It’s not just about spookiness—this holiday is about fun and, like Thanksgiving, family time.
It was my first Halloween this year and I was looking forward to celebrating it with my boyfriend and his sister’s family. The first thing we had to do was to decide what we would dress up as.
This was a tough one; I’ve never dressed up as anything except as a teacher in a fancy dress competition back home, so this was basically like an opportunity to dress up as someone exciting.
I had just finished watching the Netflix series Squid Game so I thought that would be a great costume, but I was sure that a lot of people would dress up like that this year, and arranging to make that costume was a big task, too.
So I decided to go back to childhood and picked a character from a childhood anime that I binge-watched just a few weeks ago. I decided to be Katara from Avatar: The Last Airbender. I bought a Katara costume from Spirit Halloween; it felt amazing wearing that costume.
After dressing up we went to the Halloween party; everyone was in costume and was super excited. There were a lot of snacks and there was a nice punch drink as well.
We played different games and then got so drunk; we laughed a lot and had a great time. But the twist is that all of that was adult halloween: it was a Halloween party for the grown ups.
The next day, Halloween itself, was all about the children.
Every household in the area was expecting about 600 trick or treaters—yes, that’s a lot! And the amazing thing is that the turnout was close to that number.
Kids were dressed in various spooky and cute costumes. They were carrying a pail to collect candies.
That day I wished I was a kid. Because although I know I can still buy candies from the store, that’s no fun compared to getting free candy. The houses welcoming trick or treaters were decorated so nicely; there was music and sometimes even some games. I took a lot of pictures.
All the neighbours coming together to celebrate a fun holiday—that’s what Halloween is for me as an international student in Canada.
I am so looking forward to celebrating Christmas this year. Every holiday that I experience and celebrate in Canada reminds me how amazing the melting-pot culture here really is.