Before the Halloween Fest the most important thing to find was pumpkins. Thanks to Google and fellow housemate acting as chauffeur (Josh), I was able to find a farm that sold pumpkins. Josh and I got there on a rainy afternoon and the farm was open. It was also completely self service! The farm had a great pumpkin selection but the pay process involved figuring out the scale and putting money in a bucket type thing. And this bucket type thing would not be giving us a receipt. So Josh and I ended up going to Giant, Wallmart and Wegaman’s to see what their pumpkin selection was like. A few days before Halloween did not give us much in the way of choice so we opted to not buy pumpkins then. Instead I got in contact with the farm to find out when someone would be there.
Fortunately they were there on the Friday before Halloween so Josh and I went back to farm with service and receipt giving capabilities. Then we were able to buy 10 or so large pumpkins, a few smaller pumpkins, and two things of hay (so we could make another scarecrow to join the one on the front stoop). Getting the hay into the trunk was a bit of a chore and ended with the farmer kicking it in and tying the trunk down. Fortunately all the pumpkins fit in the back seat and unloading them into the House was quite easy. Although the hay did leave a mess in our chauffeur’s trunk.
I’m turning it over to Tia to recap buying the rest of the supplies at Wegaman’s and the actual event itself.
On the Friday prior to this event, Maggie, Josh and I had gone to Wegmans to prepare for a Halloween feast. With the 12 quidditch players who had emailed back saying they were definitely in, and some even claiming they were going to bring their parents along (since it was parent weekend) we decided to go all out and buy enough food for approximately twenty people. We bought a whole bag of apples, a pumpkin pie, a pumpkin and cream cake, cookies, candy corn, two gallons of apple cider, plates, forks and knives, and pumpkin carving preparation kits. By the time we got to the cashier, our cart was overflowing with Halloween deliciousness, and the cashier only looked at us, looked at the cart, and back at us, probably thinking we must really enjoy our food or why else would someone by this amount of deliciousness at one time? Well we rolled the cart out to Josh’s car, and laid it on the remaining hay from the barrels we had bought for the scarecrows. Then we drove off, back to Mckelvy while being taunted the entire drive by the ohh too good smelling pies.
Upon arriving, I carefully hid the pie and cake in the refrigerator, wanting to be sure no starving college student would find it and choose to consume it in order to relieve their terrible hunger pangs. Maggie took the apples up to her room and the rest of the buy was dispersed around the house.
I went to bed early that night, after eating a large bowl of spaghetti in preparation for the Quidditch game against Chestnut Hill the next morning.
Waking up at 6:00am, I looked around at the beautiful view right outside my window. View? View!!! It had snowed! All of the trees were covered with it and it was the most beautiful sight I had seen… since last winter.
I then checked my email, and our captain, JD, had dolefully written us of the terrible news. The game was cancelled!!! Chestnut Hill had emailed last night saying due to the snow and their fear of Lafayette Quidditch, they would not be coming over to be miserably defeated by us. Well, they didn’t quite put it that way, but this is the way they meant it. I know.
So I decided to go back to sleep. I slept until 11:00, at which time, I decided to get started on my economics homework. After figuring out that investors should always buy Yen in Toronto, I started to question the relevance of this to my future life. How this is relevant to the Halloween blog, is as of yet uncertain, but the uncertainty of it is definitely very alluring. Not really.
Back to the topic. At 12:30 Maggie and I put out all of the Halloween food and materials as we anxiously anticipated how many visitors we would get. Dannyel was the first. She began by carving a pumpkin and then tested the pumpkin pie for us. After assuring us it was not poisonous, we became quite relieved. Soon after, quite a few other Mckelvites came down and joined us in the festivities. They included Megan, Hannah, Kyle, Liang, Josh, Prof. Lee and various others.
After a while, the doorbell rang, and Time Bomb walked in. Despite the fact that I’ve been playing Quidditch with him for several months now, I learned the name he was given in the 1960s for the first time at this event- Dave.
The fest went well, people carved pumpkins, created a scarecrow, ate food, and even communicated with one another. Then eventually most people went home. I went back to my economics, and learning about money matters that are impossible in real life, while Maggie, ever the good hostess, stayed down and talked with the remaining humans who lingered to eat and be marry. An hour later, she came up to my room and let me know two more Quidditch players had come.
Rin and Jared had decided to apparate to us. After talking about goblins and Hagrid, Josh told them they would probably be stuck here since the snow on the leaves was causing branches to fall down. They decided none the less to mount their brooms and fly back to their apartment.
We then cleaned up and decided it was quite a merry fest after all. And then a tree limb took our power out and we had to leave the House for a night.