It’s Halloween. I just remembered when some (no doubt cute) little kids just knocked on the door. I could see small shadows and heard little voices that sounded cute. The door went unanswered 😦
Not my door
We forgot Halloween in this house this year. I’m too busy trying to get through each day and my son is in the last throes of his Masters course. Forgot, even though I had a conversation with some students today about appropriate movies for their Halloween scary movie sleepover (in lieu of trick or treating as they couldn’t book in a parent to escort them). We also may have been hiding from the sudden heat of the day in the dark of the lounge room with the awnings down and the blinds closed and neither one of us would move to the door. The kids probably remembered getting good stuff last year from this house, because again we weren’t prepared, but we had cool junk food in the cupboard that day for some reason. This year is a dud year for us Halloween-wise. I’m sorry kids.
I really am miffed why there is Halloween and trick or treaters here. There is only a little advertising with some shops cashing in on the celebration, mainly the ones that sell things very cheaply. It is not Australian tradition to have Halloween, it is only in the last 10 years that it has started being taken up by young people and trick-or-treaters have started popping up in suburban streets. I haven’t found anyone here who knows anything about why the celebration even exists. “Google it” I told them. What a statement on society that an annual celebration would be picked up without understanding it’s background and relevance- such materialistic and shallow and socially driven people we must be?!
Contrast the knocks on my door tonight with the absolute silence heard on Halloween when we lived in North Carolina. We were prepared then- a basket of snack sized sugar treats and costumes ready to pop on- and no one came. My students lived and breathed Halloween that day but apparently in my apartment complex no children were allowed out. Maybe they were busy, or worried about safety, I thought. The next week my students cleared it up for me. What was habit apparently was that parents of small dressed up children would drive their kids to the best neighbourhoods where they didn’t have gates that got in the way. Those neighbourhoods were the best return for effort, fully prepared with the best treats, the most awesome scary front yard decorations and they had even set up haunted walks for the kiddies. Being a visitor, I was completely out of sync. They don’t tell you that stuff at induction.
The second year I was in North Carolina we left our costumes in the cupboard again and went to Carowinds in Charlotte to join in the Scarowinds Halloween night. That was disappointing on the scare factor but awesome on the going on rides in the dark factor.
Americans know how to turn it on for Halloween, they have been doing it since the Irish and Scottish immigrants of the mid-19th Century elevated it’s presence and popularity in North America. Halloween became celebrated coast to coast in North America at the beginning of the 20th Century.
I wonder if, in 100 years, Australians will celebrate Halloween with as much gusto (and spending) as the United Stated currently does?
lovemylifeanyway 