Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! by Maree Anderson for Writers Gone Wild

It's Halloween on Saturday -- only 2 days left before all the little ghosties and ghoulies come knocking on our doors, begging for treats.

I've been to a couple of Halloween parties in my time. And I've even gone all out and hired a costume or two. I did the whole Elvira, Queen of the Dark thing one year, and DH went as Beetlejuice. His sister, the hostess, didn't even recognize us when she answered the door, so we reckon those costumes were definitely worth the hireage fee!

But the cheapest and most effective costume? Fake scrubs bought from The Warehouse, which we splattered with fake blood -- DH got very artistic and believe me, the back lawn looked like a bloodbath. Sure got some looks from passersby when we had to park the car way the heck up the street and walk a-ways, LOL!

I gotta say, living in New Zealand, we really don't tend to embrace trick or treating -- though it is becoming more prevalent. You're more likely to come across parties with Halloween themes than scores of kids in scary costumes wandering the streets. And in many neighborhoods, the kids are only allowed to visit the houses with a Halloween sticker on the letterbox or very visible decorations -- the households which are "in to it", in other words. We're so terribly PC, you see.

But my kids have always liked Halloween. In fact, for my daughter's 5th birthday party -- a "significant" birthday, as you can imagine -- she asked for a Halloween-themed party. Cue one harassed mom racing round half the city looking for Halloween decorations.... In August!

I managed to put on a good show, though -- spiderwebs, pumpkin candles, bats made from black balloons with black cardboard wings, and ghosts made from white material draped over white balloons. Then there were the biscuits which looked like severed fingers, the spider cupcakes, and the huge jelly with snake lollies crawling out of it. I also seem to recall mixing up a batch of black icing for the cake -- ick!

Anyway, many of those original 5th birthday party decorations have survived almost a decade of being touted out every Halloween. And this year will be no different. Tomorrow my kids will rush home from school and decorate our front window with artistically draped cobwebs and strategically spaced spiders. They'll hang up our Halloween Central banner, and stick glow-in-the-dark witches and familiars and ghosties all over the window. They'll blow up balloons and make them into ghosts and bats, and even add a teddy bear or two, complete with ghastly Halloween masks. Then they'll wander outside and gaze critically at the window to ensure that eveything looks suitably scary, while I take another mental snapshot of their huge grins at the change they've wrought upon our usually boring front window.

And on Saturday night, they'll argue about who gets to light the pumpkin candle and where it should go for optimum spooky effect. Then they'll fill a pumpkin basket with sweets and eagerly wait for the trick-or-treaters to arrive. Mind you, these days I'm not sure whether my kids are eagerly waiting to dole out the sweets to cute little monsters and vampires, or whether they're secretly hoping that our street will be missed so they'll get to scoff all the leftover sweets themselves! Regardless, it'll be a fun night for them and we'll probably top it off by watching some semi-scary DVD together -- thank goodness they're too old to have nightmares, LOL.

Note to self: don't forget to stock up on sweets and black and white balloons!!!

So what are you planning for Halloween? Is it a family tradition to go out trick-or-treating in your town/city/part of the world?

Oh, and BTW: HAPPY HALLOWEEN -- hope you get lots of treats and no tricks!

:-)
M