Spooky Walk, Lost Gus, and Halloween

Do people celebrate Halloween in Québec, you ask? Yes. They do. I don't know if they do trick-or-treating quite like Americans do (but there is some form of it…though when we asked a friend who grew up here, "What do French speakers say at the door for 'trick-or-treat'?", he said, "I don't know, I don't think we say anything. Just hold your bag out for candy!" Hahaha. Shocking!) but there were lots of decorations around the city. I don't know if it's a mischief-making night here like it is in some big cities either? I hope not. We didn't see or hear any mischief going on, but who knows. Anyway, we didn't expect any trick-or-treaters at our house and we didn't get any. And we didn't go out ourselves either. That's only fun when you know your neighbors and all their kids, anyway, in my opinion.

BUT it was fun seeing the Halloween things throughout October and having our own little family Halloween party. We will always remember it!

This old church (a library now, the Maison du Litterature next to the Morrin Center) was lit up spookily. There were groups of people outside around here at night sometimes, being talked to by costumed tour guides as part of a "haunted Québec tour" or some such thing. The Morrin Center was one of the city's first jails, and lots of people died there, so a prime spot for ghosts, apparently!

Full moon on a lovely mild night in October.

By the Hôtel de Ville there was a whole little Halloween display you could walk through, in the same place we played in the splash pad earlier in the summer! We took the whole family on a walk there one night so the little ones could see it.

It was fun, with colored lights and little displays.

A spooky ghost

Zig trying to look like this weird pumpkin-eye-guy

Gus was quite taken by the huge mushrooms.

(And the color-changing lights)

Daisy being eaten by a man-eating plant. (Something seems off about that. More than one thing.)

Gus being eaten by a man-eating plant. (Better?)

Daisy unperturbed by a big spider

Yet another man-eating plant, eating a Marigold this time. (Tsk-tsk.)

Moon and the Notre-Dame-de-Quebec bell tower

Malachi particularly likes this wall of graffiti because of the shiny gold paint used. I admit, it is kind of pretty when it catches the light like this. I'm sure I am much comforted to know that if Malachi ever becomes a juvenile delinquent (or if he is one already!), he will bring the most elevated tastes to his art.

Somewhere not long after this idyllic picture of a happy Gus and a happy Goldie, we lost Gus!! It happened when I stopped and went in a store to look at sometime while the others peeked in the window of the popcorn store (it always smells SO good; the kids are drawn to it every time). When I came out we all went on, but Gus had wandered IN to the popcorn store (we think), then come right back out and didn't see us, and so went running off in a panic to look for us.

We realized we didn't have him pretty quickly, Sam went back to the popcorn store, and before I even had time to get very worried, a man saw us looking around and called to us in French that he'd seen a little boy running toward the Porte Saint-Jean (the gate in the picture above). I pressed on to the gate, and a few moments later I saw a big crowd of adults standing around something small. Gus! Lovely people had stopped him, given him a huge bag of cotton candy, and sent off searchers to find his parents on the busy street. We were so grateful for these kind strangers! When Daisy went running up to Gus and gave him a big hug, the crowd of teenagers gathered up on top of the gate burst into cheers and applause! They'd been watching the whole thing unfold from above and were glad to see the happy ending. Haha. Not half as glad as I was!

Sam had met one of the parent-finding-search party and was able to let them know we'd found Gus. I took a picture of Gus with his cotton candy, but as you can see, he was still quite shaken and sad from the whole thing. He perked right up when he tasted the cotton candy, though! He's never had it before. The kids shared it on the rest of the walk home and were very happy with the night's events.

———

The night before Halloween, Gus had been talking to me earnestly and at length about an idea for his costume—a "fruit-face," he called it. I honestly had no idea what he was talking about and just kept saying "uh-huh, uh-huh" encouragingly even though he was making absolutely no sense…something about how it would come around the sides of his face ("like this!" he showed me) and have all kinds of fruit on it and so forth.

Imagine my surprise when I woke up the next morning and was greeted by Fruit-Face in the flesh:

He had realized his vision exactly. I thought it was the funniest and cutest costume ever! And I still don't know what on earth was going on in his little head!

Later he made this modification (probably when he realized he couldn't see through the other Fruit-Face) but he never seemed quite as happy with it. Ah, practicality thwarts creativity yet again. The trials of the artist!

Next to appear were Ziggy and Clementine—and Evie!—dressed up as missionaries.

And then different missionaries.

Then Clementine dressed up Husky and Lion…

…and Zig dressed up Foxy Blanket! I've never seen a blanket wearing a Halloween costume before!

We obviously didn't bring costumes to Québec (except, again obviously, Ziggy, who packed his as clothes because he wears them all the time) so we told the kids to make their own for our Family Halloween Party in the evening. We told them we'd go to the dollar store Halloween morning and they could buy some finishing touches there if they needed them.

Daisy made this amazing gnome costume out of plastic tablecloths and an orange balloon. She looked SO cute!!

Zig already had his police costume, but he found this little police vest to go with it.

Then he ended up letting Gus wear it so they could both be policemen!

Gus with his Police Dog

Junie was a mean robber, though she kind of looks like a ninja here. Maybe she was a ninja-robber.

Luckily, she was quickly apprehended by the police!

Teddy figured out this whole pirate outfit with red felt and a sword.

Goldie was a beautiful and mysterious Masquerade Ball guest.

It was the nicest Halloween day. Temperatures in the 60's! We had been having chillier days before that so it was amazing that Halloween was so mild. The sun looked so beautiful through the remaining leaves (and helicopter seeds) on our tree.

The mysterious golden maiden again

Daisy made Clementine's costume, which was probably the cutest of all—a little chocolate kiss!

The view down into our backyard through the sunlit trees. So many leaves already on the ground, too!

Still some beautiful Fall color across the city!

Somewhere I was showing how the setting sun had moved sideways in the sky from Summer to Fall. Well, here is another data point for that motion! The sun is setting all the way over by the Saint-Jean-Baptiste spire!

(Bear with me; I do realize this is in fact a Known Phenomenon and no reason for excitement, but it's just I haven't noticed it myself so much before and I think it's cool!)

For our Halloween Party, we built a fire in the fireplace outside and roasted hot dogs. Malachi came up with the funniest puns to guess/describe what costumes everyone was wearing (I wish I could remember more of them, but they were wonderful). He himself dressed as "a specific article from a specific magazine"—which, of course was Bertie Wooster's piece "What the Well-Dressed Man is Wearing" from Aunt Dahlia's magazine Milady's Boudoir. (If you've read the Jeeves and Wooster stories you're well acquainted with it!)

We couldn't believe it was warm enough to be outside without coats (or even shoes…for some of us)

I made these little ghostie crackers

And these very sad meringue ghosts (I think they really should have been much taller, but they melted down into shapeless blobs. Well, no matter—ghosts can be shapeless blobs, I suppose!)—

—to go on top of lemon and chocolate tarts!

When it got chilly enough outside, we came in for warm apple cider and made caramel-dipped apples slices (which I find far superior to whole caramel apples…so much easier to eat!).