Halloween 2020, my candy delivery tube, and inflatable decorations

Halloween Candy Delivery System

2020 for Halloween was slightly different, and a lot of the same, for me.

Given “the new normal” brought about contactless and distanced interactions, I had to rethink what I usually do for Halloween.

Normally, I set up a marquee on my front lawn, perhaps dress up a bit in (usually) a very simplistic Elvis costume, and give away candies to the ghosties and ghoulies in the usual way, while (badly) belting out a few Elvis tunes, and throwing in a few bellows of “Happy Halloween!”

Me during Halloween 2008, dressed in a simple Elvis suit

Over the years, I added a coffee urn to serve coffee to parents, cookies, juice boxes, and bags of chips, all on a side table, in addition to the candies I would hand out.

This year, there was some uncertainty as to whether Halloween would be allowed at all, but ultimately, where I live, the provincial authorities decided that Halloween was an important holiday for the children to participate in. Halloween activities for adults remained cancelled. This was great for me, since I prefer the street festival vibe of serving the ghosties and ghoulies over costume parties for adults.

However, this also meant that for me, there could be no serving of coffee, cookies, extra snacks, or juice boxes. Of course, contactless and distanced interactions were to be observed, such as placing a table at the end of your driveway, with the candies in individual bags for people to serve themselves. I found this last suggestion to be decidedly unsatisfactory.

I thought about a tube delivery system, the topic of which was being discussed on the radio, while televised newscasts showed people demonstrating compressed air powered delivery systems. I chose something far more simple: A two inch tube, about ten feet long, and set up on an angle off of a step ladder.

This year’s candy delivery system, in the daylight

Operation was very low tech: I would be behind the ladder at the high end, while the ghosties and ghoulies would crouch down and place their bag or bucket at the bottom end of the tube, also on the other side of a cordoned off area. I would push three individually wrapped candies per child down the tube, one candy at a time, with a bit of flourish, calling out “One! Two! THREE!!!!!

And, if the candy didn’t make it down all the way, I would tip the ladder a bit to make sure that the candies would come out the other end.

This year’s candy delivery system, lit up in the dark, with one of this year’s Halloween inflatables

The delivery system seemed popular, and adults thought it was cool enough. A lot, although not all, of the ghosties and ghoulies understood right away what to do, while others needed prompting from either the adults with them, or from me.

Inflatable Lawn Ornaments

I have also been taking a liking to the inflatable lawn ornaments that over the past few years have come out especially around Halloween, as well as around Christmas. While arguably a bit of a luxury item, I am cheap, so whenever I buy a new addition, I only buy the least expensive smallest units, sometimes on sale a day or two AFTER Halloween; I also don’t buy the (somewhat wildly) more expensive units which are licensed designs of movie or TV characters. (I am also somewhat concerned that at some point sufficiently far into the future when I still want to use them, that the premium paid will be lost on an icon whose heyday and easy recognition are long past.)

2020’s Halloween inflatables, with a couple of friends purchased years ago from a dollar store
2020’s Halloween inflatables, lit up in the dark

I purchased the ghost (on the right) a few years ago, and this year I added the green vampire monster, and the pumpkin head skeleton.

Final Count

Given that I wasn’t sure how many children would come, or even whether there would be any at all, I had a decent turnout. My better years have brought out almost 90 children. How many ghosties and ghoulies did I give out candies to this year? At three candies per child most of the time, and 200 candies purchased, with only nine pieces left over at the end, I estimate that I served about 60 children.

Now that Halloween 2020 has come and gone … it’s time for Christmas!

Christmas themed inflatables (squirrel, snowman, and fox)

Now that Christmas is on its way, today I felt that it was time to set up my Christmas-themed inflatables. In fact, while it’s only now the beginning of the fourth week of November and Christmas is still a month away, I’m actually a bit tardy — off the top of my head, I can think of at least five other houses on my block who have already set up Christmas lights and inflatables!

I Cooked a Lot of Little Recipes Today

During this past week and looking forward to the weekend, I put together a list of four relatively easy cooking jobs for the weekend:

I say “relatively easy” since a good number (though hardly all) of my recipes are geared toward making large batches in advance meant to be frozen, and the making of which I treat as all afternoon affairs, often with a large bottle of very premium beer. The above cooking jobs, however, are individually of the smaller amounts variety, each being able to be made easily and quickly.

Today, I put my cooking plans into a bit of overdrive, and, by mid afternoon, my main cooking plans for the day were complete, with a few extras beyond the list to boot. The whole list was somewhat more ambitious than the lemon squares which I’d made at the beginning of the week during a spare afternoon I’d had.

An 8″ x 8″ pan’s worth of lemon squares made earlier in the week. They were delicious!

I started all this process somewhere around 09:30 in the morning.

Breakfast was first, consisting of my breakfast sandwiches, which are essentially a grilled cheese sandwich with a fried egg and, in my sandwich, sliced breakfast sausages, while in my mom’s, bacon.

My breakfast sandwhich with sausage (this is an old picture taken several years ago, not this morning). The photos following this one were all taken today, of the foods I made today.

At the same time, I started by setting the bread machine to replenish my supply of bread slices in the freezer for sandwiches and the like. Three hours later, the bread came out of the machine, and was later sliced and frozen.

A loaf of bread fresh out of my bread machine
The bread sliced and on a tray between sheets of food grade plastic, for freezing

One of the things I now normally keep in the freezer is a cooked mixture of ground beef and chopped onions, cooked in advance and frozen in ice cube trays. The cubes are used for putting into the likes of tomato sauces for spaghetti and other recipes calling for cooked ground beef, or instead of chopped bacon in my pizza recipe. Cooked, two pounds of ground beef with onions will fill two ice cube trays:

Cooked ground beef and chopped onions in a couple of ice cube trays, for freezing
Frozen cubes of cooked ground beef and chopped onions in a freezer bag, ready for use in future meals

Next, I cooked a single 375g package of bacon (“mild sugar cured bacon”, each slice cut in half lengthwise), for the freezer, for my mom (I prefer cooked breakfast sausages for myself):

Some of the package of bacon cooking

My next cooking job was oatmeal raisin squares, which I learned from one of Jamie Oliver’s TV shows. They’re nice enough, but I make them for my mom.

An 8″ x 8″ pan’s worth of oatmeal raisin squares, before being cut into squares
A container with today’s oatmeal raisin squares

While the oatmeal raisin squares were baking, I peeled a few pounds of potatoes for roast potatoes for tomorrow’s Sunday Lunch.

A few pounds of peeled potatoes for tomorrow’s Sunday Lunch

After that, I made blondies for myself. They’re supposed to be similar to brownies, but I add baking powder, giving them more of a cake consistency and height; they are of a tan or caramel colour, and with chocolate chips in it; I cut them into small bite-sized squares.

An 8″ x 8″ pan’s worth of blondies, before being cut into squares
A container with some of today’s blondies

Finally, I made crisped rice squares.

A 9″ x 13″ pan’s worth of crisped rice squares
A container with today’s crisped rice squares

I was finished up by about 15:00.

What’s for supper tonight?

Shepherd’s pie / Pâté chinois, of which I made and froze a half batch a couple of weeks ago!

My shepherd’s pie / pâté chinois, in its freezer bag and defrosting on the counter

Supper was tasty, as usual, and now I have added to the desserts I have in the freezer to eat over the next few weeks.