All Hallow's Eve vs. Guy Fawkes

Halloween may very well be my least favourite holiday, if you can even call it a holiday. Really it's nothing more than a "Hallmark Holiday" but without the cards. From crazy costumes to plastic grave stones, glow-in-dark skeletons and all that other crap we're encouraged to spend our hard earned cash on. Come on people candy corn is even nastier than those marshmallow Peeps things at Easter!

When I was a kid in England, Halloween always played second fiddle to Bonfire Night, alternatively known as Guy Fawkes Night. You may even have occasionally heard the rhyme:

Remember, remember, the 5th of November
The Gunpowder Treason and plot;
I know of no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

It was our night for fireworks, sparklers and toffee apples!

No need to dress up, other than warmly. No need to recreate the Village People or those Desperate Housewives. No need to wear some skimpy costume that shows off your chiseled abs and bulging bis. And most notably, no monkey masks (the girls and I were the "See no Evil, Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil" chimps, or monkeys, or whatever they are, today at work).

Just standing there, enthralled as the Guy (dressed in your dad's old clothes) bursts into flames atop the bonfire. Sparklers in hand. Biting into sizzling hotdogs and gooey toffee apples. Watching those burning embers at the end of the evening and trying to find that last piece of wood to throw on the fire and make it last just that little bit longer.

Good, simple times!