But it turns out that they "do" Halloween here in our little town. They decorate their homes and/or yards, and the kids do a Trick or Treat walk, and they even had a Halloween disco. Altogether, it's kind of odd in Australia (Halloween hasn't been a big thing here for all of my life so far), and even more odd in such a small town I guess.
When I was younger (okay, a lot younger!) I saw Halloween on American TV shows and wished we had it here! I wanted to dress up and go and get free lollies (candy) from people!!! It all looked like so much fun!!!
Then I got to live in the States for a year. Holiday season was by far my favourite time of year there! Especially Christmas and the snow and the lights and all of that. But Halloween and Thanksgiving definitely made the build up to Christmas even better.
The people I lived with didn't do Halloween as such, but we were involved in a massive Harvest Party.
It. Was. AMAZING!!!
I have never seen so many lollies in my life!!!! And the decorations and the fun and games and the dress ups. It was one of the most fun times I had there... and I had some amazingly fun times!
I especially liked that they incorporated all the "fun" stuff of Halloween, without the scary stuff. I've never been a huge fan of scary. I don't like watching scary movies - even some edge-of-your-seat action movies are too much for me. And I really don't like witches and goblins and ghouls and all of that. It's just not my thing at all. Feel free to pick on me if you wish.
So I'm glad that the Little Big Fella got to enjoy some of the good stuff as well. We went to the Halloween disco and he got dressed up (as did I - one of the few adults who did, which was kind of embarrassing but the Little Big Fella probably wouldn't have dressed up if I didn't... and I looked great :-D). I think the music, costumes and number of people overwhelmed him a little so we ended up leaving after about half an hour, but he wanted to go back as soon as we got home so it couldn't have been that bad :-).
And Saturday night we went on the Halloween walk. It was really well organised, with people in town putting their names on a list at the shop if they wanted the kids to come to their house. Then everyone met at the CWA hall and parents and kids walked around together, collecting lollies at each house.
We met at 6pm and the kids ran around while the late starters turned up ;-) Even lots of the parents had some version of dress-up going on this time :-D
Originally there were about 8 houses that we were going to visit... turns out there were about 16. Now, our town is pretty small. If you're driving through you can pretty much blink and you'll miss it. But going to 16 houses from one end of town to the other, with little kids walking (or being carried as the night goes on) takes AGES!
We didn't get home until 8:15 and by then the Little Big Fella was sooking/crying all the way home from the end of our street, then more at home while he was having a drink of water, while he was having a wash and brushing his teeth, all the way to bed, where he completely crashed in about 5 seconds.
The walk itself was great! People were incredibly generous. We came home with a rather large stash of lollies, chips and a few little toys. I reckon there's enough there to last him for at least a couple of months, and that's eating one every day (which is definitely not normal in our house!).
Amazingly, the Little Big Fella didn't get scared when his friends' dad jumped out from behind a divider. Instead, he grabbed his sword and tried to cut him down!!! Looks like we've got ourselves a brave one ;-)
He was dressed as Buzz Lightyear for the walk and ran around for most of the night with his friend (dressed as Spiderman) and they called each other Buzz and Spiderman, rather than their real names - it was pretty cute :-)
Here's the cutie in his Buzz suit. He really loves wearing it and wore it, off and on, for 3 days straight this week! Actually, I think he was alternating between his Buzz suit and his swim suit, with his clothes occasionally getting a turn too :-D
So overall we enjoyed the Halloween festivities this year. If we do it again next year, I'd like to do some more decorations (I love decorating!), possibly make a jack-o-lantern, make sure we have glow sticks or similar for our walk (easier to find each other), and maybe do something other than lollies for our treats to give out (everyone who hadn't eaten dinner especially appreciated the chips as an alternative to all that sugar).
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