Candy sucker

Growing up and watching Halloween episodes of TV shows as a kid, I always associated it with cold weather and colourful foliage. By the time I lived somewhere that actually celebrated it (the UK), those associations seemed true enough.

Last year was our first proper American Halloween. A few cool October mornings, and I got carried away - carving some pumpkins a week early. Then a few 30ºC days taught me the error of my ways. When pumpkins begin sprouting white fuzzy mould, dark spots multiply, and gunk oozes from underneath... they can be a disgusting thing to pick up for disposal. This year, I held off on carving until the day before.

The Faery was lucky that she had a school-free day, so we went to a park in Burbank for a play date with some of her classmates. A dozen five-year-olds in assorted Halloween costumes? It was cuteness overload.

Meet my swingin' cowgirl.

The park play date was followed by lunch at J's work. His workplace puts on a massive Halloween family lunch every year - complete with ghoulishly-themed food, carved pumpkin competitions, costume parade and prizes (with employees dressed to a level like I've never seen before), treasure hunts, and trick or treating for the littles. A fun way to spend a couple of hours.

...and meet my lil' cupcake.

Then it was home for an epic afternoon nap for the cupcake, and chill out time for the cowgirl, before continuing with some evening trick or treating.

Ah yes, the trick or treating. We now have an insane amount of sugary crap (of which I can't stop eating). I've told the Faery she'll probably have a week before the Sugar Sprite Fairy visits to replace her loot with a toy. I figure that should give me enough time to get to a toy store. It also means I can openly eat chocolate in her presence. Once the switch has taken place, I'll have to be more careful. Chocolate stuffing-of-face activities will have to be limited to post kiddy bedtimes. Even then, I need to come up with a better plan, unless I want to be buying my next pair of jeans in a bigger size.

The lure of sugar proved a happy event.

Overload on sugar and cuteness.

In Australia, we never did anything for Halloween. There'd be one random house in the neighbourhood with Halloween decorations, and a handful of kids would come a knocking. Half the time, they were teenagers who hadn't even bothered to dress up - they possessed some weird sense of entitlement to sweet treats because it happened to be October 31st and they'd seen trick or treating on American shows. So, we tended to keep the outside lights off, keep quiet, and pretend we weren't home if we heard the door bell. As do most people we know - at least, in the neighbourhoods we'd lived in.

We're going to have to rethink that approach when we move back to Australia, though. The Faery was devastated when I told her that not many people bother with Halloween in Australia. There was much sobbing, and declarations of love for all things Halloween, until I heard myself promising that we could still 'do' Halloween when we move back.

Yeah, I'm a sucker...