We've now spent two Halloweens in Sydney, and both have been a letdown. Granted, this is coming from a true blue American, who has years and years of wonderful memories of trick or treating on cool Fall nights, while wearing elaborate costumes. Wonderful Halloween parties on the nights leading up to the big day, and actually being encouraged to wear our costumes to school. Thinking and dreaming of the day for months, almost bursting with anticipation of the thought of gorging ourselves with chocolate and liquid filled wax lips for the next month. But, alas, this is not the case in Australia. Although I think this year it was more popular than last year (thanks to the Disney channel), it still comes no where close to the US, or other countries that embrace the holiday. I had heard that there was a US /Canadian party in the City, so we hit that for a little while earlier in the day. Turns out that it was in a bar, and mainly seemed like a reason to get the parents together to drink. We stayed long enough to grab a bite to eat and for Mitch to break out some killer Jedi moves. Costume decision was easy this year. Star Wars is huge with the kids at Mitch's school, so naturally he wanted to be Obi Wan Kenobe for Halloween. No problem, except that there are no licensed Star Wars patterns. So I winged it. I was a little worried about a wonky seam and the sleeves not being wide enough. All that worry for nothing. Most kids were wearing a plastic cape, or a funny hat, or gel in their hair. Not any type of theme or anything that you might recognize. No one seemed to scrutinize anyone else's costume, or give Kudos. No, "Hey, Obi Wan" or "Is the force with you?"
On the way home we drove around and located a few neighborhoods that had balloons on the fences, indicating that they were passing out candy. Most people handing out candy also asked Mitchell was his trick was. The poor kid had no idea what was going on. One person wouldn't give him candy until he did a trick. When he said he didn't have one, she asked if he had a song or a dance for her. Mitch offered up a knock knock joke, which seemed to appease her, thankfully. We hit about twenty houses and decided to call it a night. We decided to stop at one more house on a corner that had some decorations outside. We walked up and Mitch rang the bell. Three girls came to the door ranging in age from about 8 to 12. One girl gave him candy, and another pulled out a squirt bottle and nailed him straight in the face with a stream of water. The girls laughed and shut the door. My poor little boy, turned around with a smile pasted on his face, but with a look of terrible confusion. I was so shocked I just shuttled him back to the car. At this point I had no idea what was in the bottle, so I was a little concerned. I ended up going back to the house on my own, to make sure it was just water in the bottle. I had originally posted the whole conversation, but suffice to say that the mother was completely apathetic and didn't understand why I was miffed, after all, her kids were just playing "a little trick" on him. * sigh * Someone needs to take Halloween 101. Not a great ending to the night; kind of a buzzkill. It really bothered me, I guess I took it personal. That was until Mitch went to a birthday party this morning and the parents were talking about Halloween. I mentioned the spray bottle incident, and one of the parents sheepishly mentioned that they were thinking of filling some spray bottles to squirt the kids but got busy and forgot about it. They were honestly under the impression that they were supposed to play a trick when kids came to the door. I ended up giving everyone an education on Trick or Trick etiquette. They were totally clueless, and genuinely appreciative for the info. Unfortunately the party ended, so I didn't get to go over wrapped versus non wrapped candy. Fun size Kit Kats = good. Marshmallows = not so much. And yes, someone actually dropped this piece of carrot in Mitch's bucket.
Looking back and putting all that other stuff aside, Mitch had a good time. And that's what really matters. I have more photos on another camera, but I just don't have time to download them. I'll have to add more later. I hope everyone back home had a Happy Halloween!
We've now spent two Halloweens in Sydney, and both have been a letdown. Granted, this is coming from a true blue American, who has years and years of wonderful memories of trick or treating on cool Fall nights, while wearing elaborate costumes. Wonderful Halloween parties on the nights leading up to the big day, and actually being encouraged to wear our costumes to school. Thinking and dreaming of the day for months, almost bursting with anticipation of the thought of gorging ourselves with chocolate and liquid filled wax lips for the next month. But, alas, this is not the case in Australia. Although I think this year it was more popular than last year (thanks to the Disney channel), it still comes no where close to the US, or other countries that embrace the holiday. I had heard that there was a US /Canadian party in the City, so we hit that for a little while earlier in the day. Turns out that it was in a bar, and mainly seemed like a reason to get the parents together to drink. We stayed long enough to grab a bite to eat and for Mitch to break out some killer Jedi moves. Costume decision was easy this year. Star Wars is huge with the kids at Mitch's school, so naturally he wanted to be Obi Wan Kenobe for Halloween. No problem, except that there are no licensed Star Wars patterns. So I winged it. I was a little worried about a wonky seam and the sleeves not being wide enough. All that worry for nothing. Most kids were wearing a plastic cape, or a funny hat, or gel in their hair. Not any type of theme or anything that you might recognize. No one seemed to scrutinize anyone else's costume, or give Kudos. No, "Hey, Obi Wan" or "Is the force with you?"
On the way home we drove around and located a few neighborhoods that had balloons on the fences, indicating that they were passing out candy. Most people handing out candy also asked Mitchell was his trick was. The poor kid had no idea what was going on. One person wouldn't give him candy until he did a trick. When he said he didn't have one, she asked if he had a song or a dance for her. Mitch offered up a knock knock joke, which seemed to appease her, thankfully. We hit about twenty houses and decided to call it a night. We decided to stop at one more house on a corner that had some decorations outside. We walked up and Mitch rang the bell. Three girls came to the door ranging in age from about 8 to 12. One girl gave him candy, and another pulled out a squirt bottle and nailed him straight in the face with a stream of water. The girls laughed and shut the door. My poor little boy, turned around with a smile pasted on his face, but with a look of terrible confusion. I was so shocked I just shuttled him back to the car. At this point I had no idea what was in the bottle, so I was a little concerned. I ended up going back to the house on my own, to make sure it was just water in the bottle. I had originally posted the whole conversation, but suffice to say that the mother was completely apathetic and didn't understand why I was miffed, after all, her kids were just playing "a little trick" on him. * sigh * Someone needs to take Halloween 101. Not a great ending to the night; kind of a buzzkill. It really bothered me, I guess I took it personal. That was until Mitch went to a birthday party this morning and the parents were talking about Halloween. I mentioned the spray bottle incident, and one of the parents sheepishly mentioned that they were thinking of filling some spray bottles to squirt the kids but got busy and forgot about it. They were honestly under the impression that they were supposed to play a trick when kids came to the door. I ended up giving everyone an education on Trick or Trick etiquette. They were totally clueless, and genuinely appreciative for the info. Unfortunately the party ended, so I didn't get to go over wrapped versus non wrapped candy. Fun size Kit Kats = good. Marshmallows = not so much. And yes, someone actually dropped this piece of carrot in Mitch's bucket.
Looking back and putting all that other stuff aside, Mitch had a good time. And that's what really matters. I have more photos on another camera, but I just don't have time to download them. I'll have to add more later. I hope everyone back home had a Happy Halloween!
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3 comments:
LOL! That is so funny! I can't believe they totally twisted the concept of "trick-or-treat". No one asked my kids to do tricks, and no one played any mean spirited tricks on us, thankfully. That's crazy!
Don, your hubby here.... I'm still thinking of going back to that house and nailing it with a dozen eggs. "You want to celebrate Halloween? Well, I'll show you how we celebrate Halloween - take that, and that, and that, here's another, take that...."
Don, I seriously think you should go back there and give them a little treat of their own.
That story was insane. We had better luck with our trick or treating but we haven't even looked in the bag at what they got-- they forgot about the candy after we were done.
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