Well, yesterday the aquarium at which I volunteer held its annual public Halloween partyóthe “Scarium at the Aquarium”óand most all of the volunteers and staff were dressed up. I wore a makeshift Viking costume consisting of a plastic helmet (it had horns, which Vikings didn't actually wear, but I wasn't going for a historically accurate costume); a small, fluffy brown blanket that I fastened around my neck with safety pins so that it was draped over my back like a bearskin cape; an antique brooch that my mother lent me, which I affixed to the “collar” of the blanket-cape so that it looked like it was holding it together; a foam sword; and a necklace of Baltic amber beads (amber was highly prized by Vikings as jewellery). Beforehand I had attempted to learn to speak with a Swedish accent, to complete the, but I couldn't manage it, so instead I went with a Scottish accent (my reasoning being that, historically, there were Vikings in Scotland, and I myself am of both Swedish and Scottish descent). I had done some prior research on that accent as well, though my imitation of it could hardly be taken as genuine.
I brought with me a bucket of Swedish fish that I had originally planned to hand out to visitors, before I'd learned that, for insurance reasons, all candy that was distributed to the public had to have been purchased by the aquarium. So instead I gave the bucket to my boss so that the other volunteers and staff could have the Swedish Fish; they appreciated that.
Quite a few peopleóboth aquarium workers and visitorsóliked my costume, and commented on it; a couple of them implied that I pulled off the Viking look rather well, presumably because of my bushy reddish beard.
One of the visitors was my youngest brother, who stayed at the aquarium the whole time I was there (over three-and-a-half hours :!). He wore a lobster hat and a necktie designed to look like a salmon.
When we got home, my brother carved a jack o' lantern that looked like a woodchuck
(I think that was the latest we've ever carved a jack o' lantern;
usually we do it at least a few days before Halloween). Only one group of trick-or-treaters came to our house, but hey, that means that we get to have the rest of the candy.
So yep, I had a pretty fun Halloween.
