The Jesus boy...

Quite a year for trick-or-treaters. We had a fantastic menagerie of young devils, vampires, ghosts, ghouls, witches; even a nine-year old boy in a suit and bowler hat carrying a briefcase who told me he was a banker. That made me smile and when he told me that he was my worst nightmare I had to agree, after all bankers are the devil’s spawn – and that’s been scientifically proven Dr Frankenstein.

To balance the banker, a couple of knocks later we had a lone young Jesus at the door. Dressed in white robes with rope belt and homemade beard I might have asked him if he’d confused Halloween with Christmas until I saw his bloodied crown of thorns and the red tears pouring from his eyes. I was tempted to give him a loaf and a fish but I didn’t have any handy and gave him a bag of sweets instead. ‘God bless’ he said as he turned and walked down the path.

They came in tens and dozens queuing along the path from our gate to our door. They came in Shakespearean witch-themed trios, ghostly whitewashed duos, a foursome of dead pirates from the Caribbean. They came with bags and cauldrons, sacks and buckets, bowls and dishes – they came and took just about every sweet we had in the house. But best of all they came; they afforded me such amusement.

In total I counted around fifty of the little monsters over a couple of hours, and that excludes the parents standing at the gate many of whom had dressed for the occasion.

My pumpkin light lasted long after the last cry of ‘Trick or Treat’ had echoed away into the night. Going outside around midnight, to blow through the pumpkin’s eye and extinguish the candles, across the street I thought I saw the Jesus boy wandering along the road. But when I looked closer it was just the shadow from the street lamp shining on the pavement.