Halloween

This October we celebrated our first Halloween in America. Halloween is a big deal here in the States and some people go to a great deal of trouble to decorate their house and prepare a mountain of candy for the children who come trick or treating on October 31. There was a Halloween carnival on October 27 at our local community centre, featuring a haunted house, costume contest and lots of games and prizes (almost all of them were edible) for the children. N dressed up as Superman (see the photo) and had a whole lot of sugar-fuelled fun of course. On the 31st there was a Halloween party at his preschool (he brought home 3 bags full of lollies) followed by trick or treating around the community centre with his classmates (more lollies), then that night I took him trick or treating (even more lollies) with his friend Peter and Peter's family. P stayed at home and handed out the treat bags that I had filled and decorated (I made about 70 of those; we were warned to expect "a lot" of trick or treaters). We had a great time walking in our neighbourhood, knocking on doors, avoiding the scary haunted houses (some of them were fully decked-out inside like a haunted house, complete with scary monsters and ghouls jumping out to try to freak the kids out), especially the one with the chainsaw-toting monster in the front yard... a real guy, with a real chainsaw. When we got home P had given out about 30 lolly bags and we thought we had got off pretty lightly but by the time we ran out of candy (we were told to turn off our outside light when the candy ran out, a signal that no more trick or treaters were welcome to knock on the door) the total was 110 kids coming to the house to ask for lollies. Yikes! Now we know that we have to be even more prepared next year!