Friday, November 01, 2013

The Earl Grey Street Halloween Party

A sign of a good neighbourhood is when people get together and hold their own small events.   The Tillicum Gorge neighbourhood has some.  One example is the annual garage sale of Balfour Street and another is the Earl Grey Street Halloween Party.

Each year the 3000 and 3100 blocks of Earl Grey Street in Saanich hold a street party for Halloween.  It is local organic events like this that build stronger social connections in our neighbourhoods.   I ran in a number of friends.  Max met kids from his preschool and his kindergarten class.

Many of the houses are well decorated for the event, at least a couple too spooky for my five year old Max.



The party attracts kids and adults from around the neighbourhood.   Many people do as we do and trick or treat with their kids from home to Earl Grey.   By 6:30 most doorsteps are non-stop busy with kids coming to the door.  A friend said she lost count at 168 this year and she thought traffic was down from last year. They also have a great fireworks show each year starting at shortly after 8 pm.

 

Where the fireworks happen one of the houses turns their garage into a haunted house.  Across the street there is free hot chocolate, pop as well has hot dogs and other food.

This year about 300 people were on the street to watch the half an houe long firework display.   This is not one of the big professional Canada Day firework displays, but because of the smaller scale of it and the community setting, it is impressive in it's own right.


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