Distant relatives of the Addams Family, I presume?

Having grown up in South Africa, I never paid much heed to Halloween. It’s very much a North American tradition.

I remember a friend who used to go for a walk on our 85-acre, century-old high school campus at night, without fear of anything. Lions, bears and other wild animals were as scarce as trick or treaters where I grew up, and crime wasn’t big either. But things have changed, which makes it difficult for the tradition to gain a foothold in the southern tip of Africa. Of course, I did experience a bit of the North American holiday while living in Canuckistan in 2013/14. And then last year, while in the USA, I locked the front door, turned off all the lights and hid in a back room watching TV because I hadn’t bought candy to dole out, and I didn’t want the house I was staying in to be toilet-papered or “egged.”

And, growing up in South Africa, I also learned that throwing candy at little kids was a very colonial thing to do.

But I jest.

Last week I walked into a friend’s house, where I was confronted with the closest thing to Halloween Central, or a non-haunted haunted house that I could imagine. Firstly, the front door chime was a blood-curdling scream. And then every room I stepped into had been transformed with Halloween paraphernalia. Wine glasses and dinner plates were replaced with holiday ware, the fireplace mantel had characters that looked like they belonged in the Addams Family, and the beautiful grand piano in the parlour had its own skull centerpiece and evil looking hands resting on the keys…

The next day the youngest child had some friends over for a playdate. Fortunately they were a creative, fun bunch.

“Are you going to take photos of us today,” one asked hopefully, after hearing that I owned a fancy camera. I wasn’t in the mood for a regular photoshoot, and so I suggested that they choose one prop with which to pose. And it all just grew from there.