Time to Carve the Pumpkins

Actually, I think it is past time to carve the pumpkins into Jack-O-Lanterns for Halloween. I like to carve them far enough in advance to enjoy them some before I put them out on the porch at night. This year, as usual, we all went for impromptu, hand drawn designs of our own rather than using pumpkin carving templates. Last year, I used a template. Pumpkins in the stores this year range in price from $2.99 (about 60Kc)at Wal Mart to $6.00 (about 120 Kc) for smallish ones at grocery and home improvement stores. None of the pumpkins at this price are nearly as huge as the one we got at a Brno florist's for 50 Kc. A pumpkin of that size here would be around $20 (about 500Kc).


Yesterday evening we went to a church for what they call "Trunk-or-Treat", trick-or-treating in the church parking lot. Members of the congregation park their cars in the lot, open the trunks or hatchbacks and stand around for children to come by and say "trick-or-treat." Traditionally, Halloween trick-or-treating was done on Halloween in one's own or a nearby neighborhood. We knocked on the doors of strangers, said, "Trick-or-Treat", said thank you and went on to the next house as fast as we could. In our case because we lived so far out of town, we went to my grandmother's house and trick-or-treated in her neighborhood.Sometimes, there were so many children participating that it was possible to go to the same house twice without getting caught. These days, however, there are quite a few conservative Christians who believe that Halloween is some form of devil worship,and some take a very hard line against any and every thing Halloween. To avoid giving the devil his due, many churches here now offer Fall Festivals to compete with Halloween. It is already the case that in the public schools here that there can be no images of witches or black cats at Halloween, that Halloween can't be called Halloween (it's Fall Festival) and that the holiday's official colors have gone from the traditional black and orange to purple and orange. Lord only knows what will become of Christmas once those conservatives learn the pagan origins of December festivities. It is a good thing Bram goes to an excellent International Baccalaureate school, where they can say the Pledge of Allegiance and learn about other religions of the world, and learn to respect and tolerate them all. Reciting the Pledge is not allowed in the public schools Here's why. This is thanks to the mongers of political correctness. At Bram's school, they can celebrate Halloween and Christmas, and Easter too and call the celebrations by their right names. And when the Hindi, Jewish, and Moslem children want to share something about their religions, they are encouraged to do so. It is a shame that in America this is now a privilege that one must pay for.
We had a great time at Trunk-or-Treat. Most of the people giving out candy had decorated the backs of their cars, and a few even wore cotumes themselves. It was especially fun to see the very young children in their costumes going from car to car to get their candy. Some of them were too small to say, "Trick or treat"! There were even girls dressed as witches, though they were in burgandy and purple rather than predominantly black costumes. Bram went dressed a huge sack of potatoes, and no one was the wiser to the connection of this costume to Brambory Den. By the way, Happy Czech National Day!