This year I put my foot down; going on four years of no Halloween is ridiculous. In addition my kids are at a freaken cute age (7, 5, 2). and by the time Halloween picks up out here (if ever) it will be too late! I started by splurging on a pumpkin. In Australia the word pumpkin includes squash so I had to make a special request for a "Halloween pumpkin" (orange ones). I bought one the day before Halloween and got a killer deal (under $30.00...I think it was like 2 kilos). Just remember it is spring over here and pumpkins are out of season and must be imported! We CARVED IT!! Afterwards we couldn't find any candles so we put blue Christmas lights inside and it actually looked creepier than a candle--score!
Secondly, I found/ made/ bought costumes. YES, all of us had a costume this year! Olivia was tinker bell (made it) Mary was Angelina Ballerina (had/ found it) and Thomas was Batman (bought it). I bought Stan a scary pumpkin mask and I wore orange black everything and topped the outfit off with buying plastic tacky jack-o-lantern earrings!
I decorated my house, with all the black balloons I never use during birthday parties. I bought candy for trick-or-treating and even found some Halloween wrapped lollies at a dollar store--score!!
So now we are usually all dressed up with no where to go, but this year I organized trick-or-treating! I taught people how to do it and even made a check list for those worried and sent around a sign up sheet. I got 8 houses to participate in about an hour (or more) radius! Just thinking that my kids will come home with 8 pieces of candy this year, and we will have spent $30.00 in gas!! Luckily they came home with a ton!
The morning of I started talking to people only to find out they were kind of stressed and that they had spent countless hours decorating. Seriously, their door would only be knocked once in the whole night...by my kids! I was like really? These people are going ALL OUT. It made me smile because I only decorated my door frame. I wonder if they realized it was supposed to be fun/stress free and under a minute. (1) knock, knock! (2)"Trick-or-treat!" (3) put candy in bag and shut the door! Did I miss that in my Halloween orientation? I know I covered that the candy had to be wrapped and NO, you can't give them a game if you don't have any candy...just HAVE candy, you know they are coming etc...I did mention something about decorating and possibly being dressed up to scare the trick-or-treaters but lets not all be over achievers! :-)
Either way, what cool friends I have hu? My kids had a blast and I can't wait for next year! I wish I had more international friends in the USA so I could celebrate their holidays.
ps. Since Halloween was on Sunday this year I just told everyone Halloween was Saturday (because they wouldn't know the difference) and we celebrated a day ahead!!
6 comments:
Congratulations! You did a great job! What an organizer you are. Word will spread and next year you will have ten times the amount participating. Just remind people a little earlier. The pictures are great and all the kids looked darling!
I laughed through this post. I love you and think it's great you put your footdown! You all looked great and your friends are amazing.
Oh my gosh- I LOVE IT!! You did such a great job and your kids will remember it forever! What a great tradition you are starting there! We found out that neighborhoods here with a lot of ex-pats do trick or treating, but we are moving into our "permanent" home tomorrow, and plus with it being Sunday we just did it ourselves in our apartment (the kids knocked on the bedroom doors and we passed out candy to them). It really was a sad, sad site!
Good work again- I love what you did!
Wow, I'm impressed! I think you made more of an effort than I did! Does that make me un-American?
That is hilarious! What nice friends you have and what a great mom you are to do this for your kids. I think I would have just pretended the holiday didn't exist, haha.
Eisha you rock! you can be my mom anytime!
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