From the Taff to Texas: Halloween

Our first Halloween in America was great fun. It started early at the beginning of October with big decorations going up on houses in the neighbourhood (http://taff-to-texas.blogspot.com/2014/10/halloween-already.html). We bought a few decorations for our house and Alice got to work making gravestones out of cardboard boxes (of which we have an ample supply), ghosts out of old sheets, and she cut bat shapes out of black paper to stick on the windows. Of course, we also made a Jack o' Lantern. We used the flesh to make some delicious pumpkin bread with a recipe my friend gave me after we went around for tea. For a first attempt we thought we did an OK job with the house.

In the weeks running up to Halloween a game went around the neighbourhood called "Boo", in which you anonymously leave outside someone's door a bucket or bag of Halloween treats and sweets with a note of instructions telling them they've been 'booed'. You ring the bell and leg it. They then have to put a sign on their door saying they've been booed and have to 'boo' two more people. The kids loved this game, deciding which of their friends to 'Boo', creeping up on houses trying (largely unsuccessfully) not to be seen, and the guessing game of who booed who at school and which houses had been booed.

On Halloween itself, the kids put on their costumes and we left a big bucket of sweets outside our house and headed out Trick or Treating. Everyone was out and about, those who didn't go out trick or treating sat outside their houses or stood in their doorways dishing out sweets to the kids, many of them were also in fancy dress. The kids managed to meet up with their friends, and one of them had a bit of a party going on in their cul-de-sac, so we hung out there for a while. The kids managed to collect and enormous quantity of 'candy', I think it will last them through to Christmas!