Last Halloween John and I ditched a friend’s Halloween party, stayed home instead, turned off all the lights in our apartment, hid out in the basement and watched 1970’s horror films, while the neighbours upstairs dealt with all the screaming kids ringing our door bell.

We felt like total ass wipes. If there’s a Scrooge equivalent for Halloween, we were most definitely it. We told ourselves this year would be different. This year we’d redeem ourselves…