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“Everything Pumpkin” and Sugar Season

They are orange, cheap, big, heavy and everywhere—pumpkin season is in full swing.

They are small, colourful and sold by boxes of 100, 50 or 30 pieces—Halloween candies have taken over the aisles in supermarkets.

This is the time of the year when your food is pumpkin-flavoured, sugary, spooky and scary.

Mark begs Feng to go hang out at Walmart and check out “monsters”—plastic ghosts, Frankenstein heads and other creepy creatures that adorn most front yards. Shoppers’ carts are full of red lettering “caution tape,” spider webs, fake tombstones and bloody body parts to be displayed outside just for fun and to scare the neighbourhood kids.

Halloween is a strange tradition and I’m always surprised to see how popular it is among adults. Indeed, Canada goes wild, maybe to forget that summer is over and we will all need to throw a winter coat over the costume.

Holiday events are always extravagant in North America. “Evil sugar is killing us and should be banned”, except for the entire month of October when you’re encouraged to buy boxes of 30, 50, 100 or 200 treats. Sure, most of them are supposed to be given out on October 31 but they will haunt school lunches and office drawers long after the last ghost showed up at the door.

Unsurprisingly, popular treats include candies (M&Ms, Skittles, etc.) as well as candy bars like Snickers, Oh Henry, Kit Kat, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and the classic made-for-Canada Coffee Crisps. Other food brands—Pringles, Doritos, Bear Paws cookies, Goldfish Crackers—also jump on the bandwagon and introduce “spooky” limited editions of their savoury snacks for Halloween. They are super popular with kids because they are acceptable school lunch box items (e.g., shitty nutritional value but peanut-free).

If you’re not into classic Halloween treats, you’d better develop a taste for pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice, the trendy flavours of the season—pumpkin spice latte, cookies, muffin, pancakes, breakfast cereals, pop tarts, oatmeal… and of course, pumpkin pie.

I’m partial to chocolate so I’m patiently waiting for Christmas, which should start in grocery stores on November 1.

Meanwhile…

Halloween treats at Walmart
Halloween treats at Walmart
Halloween treats at Walmart
Halloween treats at Walmart
Halloween treats at Walmart
Halloween treats at Walmart
Halloween treats at Walmart
Halloween treats at Walmart
Halloween treats at Walmart
Halloween treats at Walmart
Halloween treats at Walmart
Halloween treats at Walmart
Halloween treats at Walmart
Halloween treats at Walmart
Halloween treats at Walmart
Halloween treats at Walmart
Halloween treats at Walmart (Pringles, really?!)
Halloween treats at Walmart (Pringles, really?!)
Halloween treats at Walmart
Halloween treats at Walmart
Halloween treats at Loblaws
Halloween treats at Loblaws
Halloween treats at Loblaws
Halloween treats at Loblaws
Halloween treats at Loblaws
Halloween treats at Loblaws
Pumpkin spice cookies
Pumpkin spice cookies
Pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies
Pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies
Mini pumpkin tarts
Mini pumpkin tarts
Pumpkin pie
Pumpkin pie
Cool Whip (imitation whipped cream is apparently an Halloween staple)
Cool Whip (imitation whipped cream is apparently an Halloween staple)
Pumpkin sauce
Pumpkin sauce
Candy bowl
Candy bowl
Pumpkin loot bag
Pumpkin loot bag
Candy tray
Candy tray
Decorative pumpkins
Decorative pumpkins
Decorative pumpkins
Decorative pumpkins
Pumpkins
Pumpkins
Pumpkins
Pumpkins
Pumpkins
Pumpkins
Pumpkins
Pumpkins
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Zhu

French woman in English Canada.

Exploring the world with my camera since 1999, translating sentences for a living, writing stories that may or may not get attention.

Firm believer that nobody is normal... and it’s better this way.

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