Halloween!

This year was our FIRST Halloween trick-or-treating in 5 years! It was my first time as a parent trick-or-treating with my kids and Olivia is 9 years old*(tangent at the bottom). I was so excited and it was kind of emotional because I didn't think I would ever get to do it. I thought, that vision of future parenting would be missed and it would be something I would have to explain to my kids while watching ET (or other American films).

 This year I didn't expect to do anything. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. There was no church "trunk-or-treat" the schools weren't doing anything, and although I had Halloween decorations in my storage... I didn't put them up. To top it off, I didn't try to explain the Halloween concept to anyone. I was tired of putting so much energy into Halloween every year, with getting results nothing close to my desired outcome. So, this year I was not going to mention it to my kids and just miss it :-)... Then the day before I got some phone calls.

First, Thomas's Aussie friend invited us to come trick-or-treating with them as their neighborhood does it, and we were American so they thought we would be interested. Second, Olivia's friend from school called and said they knew a nearby neighborhood that also trick-or-treats, and would we like to come along? THIRD- a friend from church mentioned her street does it... WHAT? Three neighborhoods? WOW! I said sure, locked up my house and once the kids got home from school we had 30 minutes to find a costume.

  Thomas used his PJ's (Skeleton)

Mary used her dance costume as a dog and we gave her some scary teeth. 

Olivia recycled her tap-dance costume (I bought pom poms) and she threw on some runners and we had a cheerleader 

Here are the kids at their FIRST HOUSE! 

*Note: this is Mary & Thomas' first time trick-or-treating (Olivia's last time was when she was 3 years old in 2006...we moved to England in 07 just 3 weeks before Halloween. After Oxford we had 3 years in Sydney with little to no Halloween, and last year was in New Zeland with no Halloween).

Knocking....So CUTE!

We went to three neighborhoods (we started at 5:00 and finished around 8:30). The kids got "a ton of candy" OK- maybe 30 pieces total...which made me smile. The neighborhoods that "do Halloween" all have different agreements. One neighborhood had rules that participating houses would put an orange balloon on their mailbox. Another street had an agreement about porch lights being turned on. It was great to see everyone try to work together to celebrate a holiday that is not their cultural norm.

 Here Mary is with her "ice block"...I am not going to say a thing about the Easter candy, money or Popsicle that were handed out at some of the doors :-) Because I am so happy we got to trick-or-treat!

Thomas' school really tries to celebrate all the holidays of various ethnicities. The teacher called me about wanting to carve a pumpkin on Halloween with the class. I was delighted because that is the most proactive activity I had ever heard of since living abroad and I really appreciated her efforts.  I talked her through it and introduced her to the idea of roasting the pumpkin seeds...She had never heard of it. Unfortunately Thomas was unwell on Halloween so he missed school, when I asked the other mums how it went they said they couldn't find a pumpkin so they carved a watermelon instead! 

Happy Halloween Australia!