Halloween in Fargo!
The dominant memory native Fargoans seem to have of Halloween is of trudging through a foot of snow, with their heavy winter coats zippered up over their costumes. We didn't quite get that experience this year – Minot, N.D., about 300 miles northwest of us, was dealt six inches of snow yesterday, but we received only a dusting.
Still, it was 25 degrees as the kids and I set off to collect candy from the neighbors tonight. Jen bravely volunteered to stay home and staff our candy distribution. Ellie was Snow White, Joey was Anakin Skywalker (Luke's father, before he turns into Darth Vader), and Katie was an adorable Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz in a costume her Grandma Judith made her. (Indy made for an ill-tempered Toto, and I had to end up holding her leash as the kids went door to door.)
Judith and Ken were up here for the week to visit and celebrate Katie's birthday. The actual picture of the kids with their winter jackets zippered up over their costumes is living on Ken's camera at the moment; I'll try to retrieve it in the next few days.
The bright side about the cold was that the kids were really pretty agreeable about heading home after a relatively short round of trick-or-treating. It was only about 6:30 when we returned, but it had been dark for quite some time. Thanks to the time change the other day, the sun now sets at 5:15 p.m. I was wearing my fabulous winter coat, which kept me toasty.
After the kids warmed up with hot chocolate and sugared up with a sampling of their haul, Jen decided it would be a good idea to go to the Haunted Corn Maze:
It was indeed. Ten miles due south of Moorhead on the Minnesota side of the river, both the Haunted Corn Maze and the Haunted Farm were in full swing on the last night of their seasons tonight. We left Ellie at home with Grandma and Grandpa, wisely, as it turned out, as she would likely have enjoyed being chased around a cornfield by chainsaw-toting masked figures even less than Joey did.
Kate and Jen quickly became separated from me and Joey; the boy and I braved the spooky figures jumping out at us and made it through the maze in relatively speedy fashion (aided when one ghoul took pity on us, broke character, and said, "Ah, don't go that way – it's a loop. Go over there instead").
The women were not so lucky. Joey and I warmed ourselves by a campfire for about 15 minutes before they reappeared. Katie told one of the figures in the maze, "You don't scare me!" He replied, "Well, I did the first eight times you walked past me." Once the maze's actors stopped laughing at them, pity was also taken, and the guy said, "Look, just follow me, OK?"
The Haunted Corn Maze also featured "The Vortex," a slowly spinning cylinder that goes around a catwalk within a small building, which produced an optical illusion that gave you the impression your body was actually flipping upside-down. Jen peeked inside and pronounced it nauseating, but Joey and Katie couldn't get enough of it. We capped the visit with a very nice hayride in the dark.
The City of Fargo apparently suffered some trauma a few years back concerning Halloween, and many of the city's public schools won't celebrate or acknowledge the holiday at all anymore. I don't have all the details, but it sounds like some parents made a very ugly stink over the supernatural overtones of the holiday. Satanic, shmatanic. As a result, even at Bennett, which seems to be relatively cool about this sort of thing, only the first graders were allowed to dress up. And Ellie's ballet teacher hemmed and hawed and could barely utter the word "Halloween" for fear of giving offense when asking if we would mind if she choreographed a dance with all the kids in their costumes.
Still, it was 25 degrees as the kids and I set off to collect candy from the neighbors tonight. Jen bravely volunteered to stay home and staff our candy distribution. Ellie was Snow White, Joey was Anakin Skywalker (Luke's father, before he turns into Darth Vader), and Katie was an adorable Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz in a costume her Grandma Judith made her. (Indy made for an ill-tempered Toto, and I had to end up holding her leash as the kids went door to door.)
Judith and Ken were up here for the week to visit and celebrate Katie's birthday. The actual picture of the kids with their winter jackets zippered up over their costumes is living on Ken's camera at the moment; I'll try to retrieve it in the next few days.
The bright side about the cold was that the kids were really pretty agreeable about heading home after a relatively short round of trick-or-treating. It was only about 6:30 when we returned, but it had been dark for quite some time. Thanks to the time change the other day, the sun now sets at 5:15 p.m. I was wearing my fabulous winter coat, which kept me toasty.
After the kids warmed up with hot chocolate and sugared up with a sampling of their haul, Jen decided it would be a good idea to go to the Haunted Corn Maze:
It was indeed. Ten miles due south of Moorhead on the Minnesota side of the river, both the Haunted Corn Maze and the Haunted Farm were in full swing on the last night of their seasons tonight. We left Ellie at home with Grandma and Grandpa, wisely, as it turned out, as she would likely have enjoyed being chased around a cornfield by chainsaw-toting masked figures even less than Joey did.
Kate and Jen quickly became separated from me and Joey; the boy and I braved the spooky figures jumping out at us and made it through the maze in relatively speedy fashion (aided when one ghoul took pity on us, broke character, and said, "Ah, don't go that way – it's a loop. Go over there instead").
The women were not so lucky. Joey and I warmed ourselves by a campfire for about 15 minutes before they reappeared. Katie told one of the figures in the maze, "You don't scare me!" He replied, "Well, I did the first eight times you walked past me." Once the maze's actors stopped laughing at them, pity was also taken, and the guy said, "Look, just follow me, OK?"
The Haunted Corn Maze also featured "The Vortex," a slowly spinning cylinder that goes around a catwalk within a small building, which produced an optical illusion that gave you the impression your body was actually flipping upside-down. Jen peeked inside and pronounced it nauseating, but Joey and Katie couldn't get enough of it. We capped the visit with a very nice hayride in the dark.
The City of Fargo apparently suffered some trauma a few years back concerning Halloween, and many of the city's public schools won't celebrate or acknowledge the holiday at all anymore. I don't have all the details, but it sounds like some parents made a very ugly stink over the supernatural overtones of the holiday. Satanic, shmatanic. As a result, even at Bennett, which seems to be relatively cool about this sort of thing, only the first graders were allowed to dress up. And Ellie's ballet teacher hemmed and hawed and could barely utter the word "Halloween" for fear of giving offense when asking if we would mind if she choreographed a dance with all the kids in their costumes.
posted by Tom at 10:14 PM
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