Hallowinter

One way and another I've spent quite a bit of time at the Boy's school today.  His class had a Halloween party in the afternoon, so I took along my contribution of cheese and crackers and stayed for the fun.  It was a low-key affair - his teacher is a very calm person and that seems to be the prevailing atmosphere in the classroom - but I enjoyed being a fly-on-the-wall and seeing my son interacting cheerfully with his classmates.  He doesn't tend to give much away about what goes on at school, but he looked happy enough to be there.

And we were back again in the evening, for the annual Harvest Dance.  I had volunteered to sell the fair trade friendship bracelets - in fact this was their launch event - to raise funds for the school and for the makers in Guatemala.  I did a brisk trade for more than two hours and sold over 130 bracelets (at $5 each).  My most eager customers were the children who'd heard the FT presentations last week, but I also got a positive reaction from lots of kids who knew nothing about fair trade and just thought the bracelets were "cool!" 

The Boy raced around with his friends and had a great time at the dance.  Meanwhile the Girl was attending an event at her own school - a costume ball.  She went as a figure skater (minus the skates).  By the sounds of it she had a very good time, too.

Waking up to snow on the ground this morning, and with more forecast for the weekend, it's hard to believe we're still not even done with Halloween.  Our next door neighbour got creative last night, making this unique tribute to the newly arrived winter and the up-coming celebration:  yes, it's a snow pumpkin.