As Australian readers know, trick or treating is not particularly common in Australia (although it is becoming more so) - nor is celebrating Halloween in general.* I started going trick or treating as a child after (I think) we did some Halloween things in school and I got all into writing spells and drawing ghosts. But not many of my contemporaries did it, and most houses were visited we less than prepared (but perfectly congenial, for all that).
I don't think we've ever even mentioned Halloween to Liam, much less the idea of trick or treating, but it must have come up at school, because on Friday night at dinner he piped up with "Can we go trick or treating tomorrow?"
I don't know what came over me, but I said sure. So at five o'clock on Saturday night we had to come up with costumes and bags. Liam dressed up as a pirate, with a bit of face paint, a bandana, and a stick for a sword. Kaely decided she wanted to be a fairy (I thought she'd be a pirate with Liam), but then changed her mind when I produced wings out of a secret hand-me-down bag. She didn't like them, but she did like the wand. So she went as not-a-fairy with a wand.
We went very, very local, only knocking on doors where we knew the people, up and down the street from us. We ended up finding six people home, out of about nine doors knocked on. The first (one of our immediate next-door-neighbours) said abruptly "Oh, sorry, we don't do that." (See footnote below for probably explanation.) Which led Liam to say "I'm a bit scared," when knocking at the next house. But happily, everyone else was more than friendly. About half were prepared, but everyone came up with something for the kids.
We don't really see much of our neighbours. We had a street New Year's Eve party two or three years back which was the first time we met most of them. Many of them have been here since the suburb was built thirty odd years ago, and they told us that way back then - when they were mostly young couples with children - they did this every New Year, blocking of part of the street and having a grand old time. Now most of their children have moved away, and so have many of those original owners, and the community has become more disparate.
So it was nice to stop and chat with some of them as we made our rounds. We visited, as I said, six houses, yet it took us about 45 minutes. And as well as the requisite lollies and chocolates we came home with a bag of broad beans and two tomato seedlings ("the best cultivar in the world").
Before we left home I told the kids that any lollies they collected would be put into a joint family bowl when we got back. This was partly to head off any comparisons on who got what or how much, and partly because the 'fairy bag' I found Mikaela was tiny (though as it turns out, it was big enough).
They got little enough (five houses, after all), that when we did get back I decided to let them eat it all then and there and get the sugar rush over in one go. This worked like a charm. Liam doesn't like chocolate, so although he tried one mini milkyway, he ended up giving it to Chris and was happy for Mikaela, Chris & I to divide the rest. But then, Kaely ate maybe half a dozen lollies, one chocolate, and ended up giving the rest away. She had a butter scotch, which was probably the first really hard lolly she'd ever had, and did not like the effect (I had to dig it out of her teeth for her!), so I think it was partly that put her off.
In any case, they both had a smashing good time, were perfectly happy with their tiny haul, and very keen to do it again next year. And we had a lovely time catching up with some neighbours, so we'll be happy to as well.
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*Which could lead to a whole discussion on how some snotty Aussie's get annoyed by Halloween celebrations, complaining that we are taking on more US culture, when in fact Halloween goes back a lot further than the US does, right back to Pagan culture - but lets not bother going there right now. I'm happy with simply saying that Chris is half American, so trick or treating is letting our kids explore their American heritage.
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