Halloween Happening festive fun for young and old

By Christy Marsters

The Hants Journal

NovaNewsNow.com

Shirley Nicoll spent a couple weeks turning her house into a Halloween Happening Oct. 25 and plenty of kids from the community piled in to take part in the festive fun.

From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. there were games galore: from a cake guess to a ghost grab, a Halloween bingo, a fish pond, a quilt draw, a cakewalk, a sucker pull, a boo bowl, a balloon burst, a boo-guessing tower, a ghost ring toss, a hole in the pumpkin, a jellybean guess and a colouring contest to name just a few things for the kiddies to do. Then there was lunch, with hot dogs and cupcakes, as everyone waited for the main event at 2 p.m.

The Amazing Pumpkin Race is a judged event that takes about an hour to run, where families and friends get into teams to carve out a pumpkin in a series of 10 stations.

It’s not the first team back that wins, but the ones with the most points, Nicoll said. “There are points awarded at every station by judges.”

These 10 stations, set up outside in Nicoll’s yard, include: grabbing a pumpkin without letting it go; marking the pumpkin with facial features; dressing up in proper pumpkin-decorating attire; carving out a pumpkin; choreographing a pumpkin dance; painting the pumpkin; adding any other natural frills to the pumpkin; putting as many pumpkin seeds in a jar as possible; lighting the pumpkin; and creating an alphabet of Halloween words. “You have to have a team (of about 20 volunteers) to get this to work,” said Nicoll, who is also on the Rawdon Hills Health Centre board of directors, “I’ve been doing this for six years to raise money for the Rawdon Hills Health Centre. Last year we raised $900.”

Cory Cox, 17, was one of the volunteers on hand to help. He gave up his day to come over to Nicoll’s house and help simply because she asked him if he would. “Plus, I like having fun with the kids. I like kids,” he said. “Shirley is so selfless; she does everything for everyone else,” Cox said. “I think our community wouldn’t be much without her. She really does a lot for everyone out here