Roughly two dozen kids showed up: more than last year, but considerably less than what we used to get in Eastie (anywhere between 80-100). Mr. and Mrs. Landlord had all the good candy, like usual. I had slightly lesser offerings, but they were still gladly accepted.
Hal decided on a bat theme this year, no doubt inspired by the past weekend's film choice.
Isn't this a great Hitchcock-inspired view of Evil Incarnate?
I had put some green Christmas lights up in my front window - arranged them so that they'd look like glowing green ooze. Hal had fun playing with long-exposure shots in the dark. He mentioned that one of the results looked to him like music:
We left the front door open so that we could take a peek around the hall every now and again. It appears as though someone else was ver-y inter-ested in the goings-on around the neighborhood:
(I like the soft, out-of-focus effect. It makes the picture look like supernatural footage from That's Incredible or Ripley's Believe it or Not - two shows I watched faithfully as a kid, in spite of my not being able to sleep afterwards.)
I don't know what on earth transpired between Hal and Mamasan here. I think that someone was trying to mess both with the cat and flash photography.
Dinner was the traditional start of cold-weather fare:
Chicken Casserole (Chicken tenders with two cloves of garlic, a handful of soaked mushrooms, a couple diced carrots, a couple diced stalks of celery, a handful of chopped fresh spinach, a can of cream-of-mushroom soup. Covered it all, baked it for roughly an hour at 350.)
Stuffed Butternut Squash (One butternut squash, split and seeded. Put a pat of butter in each cavity, then sprinkled with a bit of nutmeg and cinnamon. Tossed this into the oven for about 1/2 an hour. When squash was soft enough to make me happy, filled the cavities with prepared boxed stuffing mix. Returned to the oven for another 15-20 minutes - until the stuffing was crispy on top.)
and pumpkin ale. This year's variety was Post Road Pumpkin. Very nice with a lovely nutmeg backwash. Lovely backwash? If you like nutmeg as much as I do, it is possible.
Dessert was leftover candy (very little left, mercifully). We got to try some of the inside-out peanut butter cups.
Since we were all pretty exhausted, the evening broke up early. Still, nice to have a little tradition to give a sense of continuity.
1 comment:
I had a few dozen kids come by... and kids is a relative term. They ranged anywhere from babies being carried by mom or dad to high school kids who barely thought up a costume.
I always make sure to force the the high schoolers to work for the candy. I usually make them say trick or treat about 3 times with conviction before they get bite sized snickers from me.
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