Halloween and COVID-19: Celebrating Safely
October 27, 2020 9:37 PM Subscribe
Everyone I follow seems to be making fun of this, but I love it. Also, the translator is chewing up the scenery in a way that is delightful.
That said, taking off one's mask when speaking is a surprising choice.
posted by eotvos at 12:14 AM on October 28, 2020
That said, taking off one's mask when speaking is a surprising choice.
posted by eotvos at 12:14 AM on October 28, 2020
> taking off one's mask when speaking is a surprising choice.
It benefits lip readers.
posted by ardgedee at 4:59 AM on October 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
It benefits lip readers.
posted by ardgedee at 4:59 AM on October 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
This all seems like reasonable advice, and now I want a Totoro onesie.
We don't really do Halloween round where I live, but In my brother's village most of the houses have done outdoor or window displays, which are normally unusual in the UK. The brother has done a display of pumpkins and hoisted his giant pumpkin flag. Much to his dismay, the wife vetoed the giant skeleton.
posted by Fuchsoid at 5:08 AM on October 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
We don't really do Halloween round where I live, but In my brother's village most of the houses have done outdoor or window displays, which are normally unusual in the UK. The brother has done a display of pumpkins and hoisted his giant pumpkin flag. Much to his dismay, the wife vetoed the giant skeleton.
posted by Fuchsoid at 5:08 AM on October 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
Too video, didn't watch the whole thing. What's the general wisdom on providing candy for trick or treaters? A bowl on the street and you sort of wave from your doorstep?
posted by signal at 5:57 AM on October 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by signal at 5:57 AM on October 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
Signal, the prevailing wisdom around here (upstate New York) is a table at the end of the driveway with small bags of candy, or well spaced out candy, so kids don't reach into the same bowl over and over, and so they don't all go to exactly the same spot at one time. And then yeah, I guess you watch from the doorstep or porch or break out your winter coat and some cocoa and lawn chairs?
We're going to be taking our own little monsters out and around so who knows if a big kid will sweep the whole table's worth into their bag or not.
posted by celare at 6:15 AM on October 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
We're going to be taking our own little monsters out and around so who knows if a big kid will sweep the whole table's worth into their bag or not.
posted by celare at 6:15 AM on October 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
It's a well-established Halloween fact that people who leave a bowl of candy out for trick-or-treaters (often with the pitiful injunction to "please take one per person") are lazy, kind, and wonderfully naive chumps, both mocked and beloved by gluttonous kids. Most years such trusting souls are few and far between, but 2020 holds the promise of their near ubiquity: block after block of driveways and walkways studded with bowls of candy- or, like celare mentioned, tables of carefully-spaced out candy- ah, what a sight!
But signs and calls from the porch urging trick-or-treaters to reign in their lust for sweets will be brazenly ignored. Houses will be emptied of candy with chilling swiftness, the driveway bowls and tables brought in long before the usual time, and latecomers will restlessly stalk the streets, masked, blood sugar levels perilously low, cursing COVID-19 for ruining their trick-or-treating prospects. In the absence of free-flowing treats this year, tricks may reign supreme, and come All Saints Day, much of America may be damp and sticky with smashed pumpkins, windows and cars caked in egg and shaving cream, trees shrouded in toilet paper that, mere months ago, was part of some fearful household's emergency hoard.
Those of us who left out candy and sat on the porch, watching helplessly as juvenile monsters took our offerings by the fistful, will shake our heads and wonder what COVID-19 has wrought. Is this what Halloween in America will be from now on? Are we doomed to sit by and watch our candy be taken in inappropriate amounts forever, having joined, by choice, the ranks of the candy bowl rubes?
"Please take one," we whisper as we sweep pumpkin guts off the steps. "Just one. Please."
posted by heteronym at 9:29 AM on October 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
But signs and calls from the porch urging trick-or-treaters to reign in their lust for sweets will be brazenly ignored. Houses will be emptied of candy with chilling swiftness, the driveway bowls and tables brought in long before the usual time, and latecomers will restlessly stalk the streets, masked, blood sugar levels perilously low, cursing COVID-19 for ruining their trick-or-treating prospects. In the absence of free-flowing treats this year, tricks may reign supreme, and come All Saints Day, much of America may be damp and sticky with smashed pumpkins, windows and cars caked in egg and shaving cream, trees shrouded in toilet paper that, mere months ago, was part of some fearful household's emergency hoard.
Those of us who left out candy and sat on the porch, watching helplessly as juvenile monsters took our offerings by the fistful, will shake our heads and wonder what COVID-19 has wrought. Is this what Halloween in America will be from now on? Are we doomed to sit by and watch our candy be taken in inappropriate amounts forever, having joined, by choice, the ranks of the candy bowl rubes?
"Please take one," we whisper as we sweep pumpkin guts off the steps. "Just one. Please."
posted by heteronym at 9:29 AM on October 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
We have a 6.5-foot cardboard tube that a barbell came in, so we’re going to sit on the porch wearing masks with the tube mounted to a railing and drop fun sized candy bars through the tube to trick or treaters at the bottom of the steps. Heteronym, thanks for the reminder to bring our pumpkins inside with us.
posted by Tehhund at 10:05 AM on October 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Tehhund at 10:05 AM on October 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
I can redeem my purchase of weakness* from Amazon by repurposing the cardboard box into a tilted snake candy delivery vehicle. So I plan to sit on my porch, yes, wearing whatever frightful clothes I've been wearing for months, yes, and slide a prewrapped baggie of treats down to the little monsters below, about 10' away.
Pumpkins come inside anyway as I don't feed rats.
*a dear friend sent a gift card so I got a nice warm blankie, which I will likely also be wearing on the porch.
posted by winesong at 10:09 AM on October 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
Pumpkins come inside anyway as I don't feed rats.
*a dear friend sent a gift card so I got a nice warm blankie, which I will likely also be wearing on the porch.
posted by winesong at 10:09 AM on October 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
I put everything into tidy bags that I'm gonna toss at any kids that may appear.
posted by aramaic at 2:20 PM on October 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by aramaic at 2:20 PM on October 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
I decorated my house like a medieval castle, complete with flickering bulbs in the light fixtures, hung a blow up dragon, and will use a tiny desktop-sized catapult to fling candy at children. I am also planning a dragon egg hunt in the front yard for the less adventurous kids. I'm not sure we'll get enough trick or treaters to justify all the work, but really, the approving comments from the neighbors has been worth it.
I just really wanted to do something over the top and cheerful for the neighborhood this year.
posted by natabat at 2:51 PM on October 28, 2020 [4 favorites]
I just really wanted to do something over the top and cheerful for the neighborhood this year.
posted by natabat at 2:51 PM on October 28, 2020 [4 favorites]
A coworker has a giant rope spiderweb running the length of her front yard, onto which she is going to clothespin on candy bars.
posted by rockindata at 4:35 PM on October 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by rockindata at 4:35 PM on October 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
That doctor in the hooded onesie with the bad angle on the teleprompter and the monotone is hilariously bleak, clown doctor reporting deaths is just bleak. And yeah, since ASL translators have to convey tone through movement and facial expressions they often look pretty hammy.
I’m planning to take this year off from free candy day. We’re experiencing record-breaking case numbers, the parent friends I asked said it’s off this year, and there’s probably still going to be a giant pile of wood chips blocking the driveway anyhow. Sorry, kids! It seems like people are going hard on the decorations instead.
posted by momus_window at 10:05 PM on October 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
I’m planning to take this year off from free candy day. We’re experiencing record-breaking case numbers, the parent friends I asked said it’s off this year, and there’s probably still going to be a giant pile of wood chips blocking the driveway anyhow. Sorry, kids! It seems like people are going hard on the decorations instead.
posted by momus_window at 10:05 PM on October 28, 2020 [2 favorites]
In better, non-pandemic years, our trick-or-treater count is rarely over a dozen (except for one anomalous year where for unexplained reasons we had close to a hundred). This year we're not even bothering.
Tangentially, the local Costco is usually nearly-sold out of Halloween candy this close to the 31st. This year they still have two or three pallets worth. It's kind of weird, in the same way that the local Targets and Walmarts still have their Back-To-School aisles still set up because they've still got to shift thousands of backpacks, notebooks, pencil cases, bottles of glue, and so on that would normally be cleared out by the end of August. And now they're crowding up against the Christmas displays they're trying to put up.
posted by ardgedee at 7:45 AM on October 30, 2020 [1 favorite]
Tangentially, the local Costco is usually nearly-sold out of Halloween candy this close to the 31st. This year they still have two or three pallets worth. It's kind of weird, in the same way that the local Targets and Walmarts still have their Back-To-School aisles still set up because they've still got to shift thousands of backpacks, notebooks, pencil cases, bottles of glue, and so on that would normally be cleared out by the end of August. And now they're crowding up against the Christmas displays they're trying to put up.
posted by ardgedee at 7:45 AM on October 30, 2020 [1 favorite]
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posted by vverse23 at 10:10 PM on October 27, 2020 [1 favorite]