A Kiwi Halloween

Well I've just celebrated my first Halloween in New Zealand. Wow... it was very different from home. Of course, it's spring here so being from the Northern Hemisphere, I think of Easter and Bunnies. It's harder getting into the Halloween spirit without dark cold nights and leaves crunching under your feet (or if you're from Northern Ontario - snow). We also don't have big orange pumpkins here - and if we did, this wouldn't be the time of the year for them. So there are no jack o'lanterns glowing in every driveway... and hardly a Halloween decoration in sight!

Our church put on a "Saints and Angels" party for the kids. We had games and a bouncy castle and a sausage sizzle. The kids came dressed in costume - there were lots of fairy princesses and angels!

I was happy to see a few vampires and witches too, and even a little Robin


Hood. I dressed up as a Scarecrow/Clown.

It was a fun afternoon. We finished up there at 7pm and the girls asked if they could go trick or treating... they'd never done it before! How could I say no? I can't believe they've missed out on it for so long! Unfortunately Chantelle was grounded so she had to miss out... and dad wouldn't back down... so I took Nat out for a bit.


Let me tell you all about it! I've never in my life experienced this before! First of all, there are very few kids in our neighbourhood. It's mostly retired people or summer homes... so there weren't many people home and it was difficult knowing which houses to go to. So we just went door knocking... first stop, our next door neighbour Raewyn... we knew she'd have some goodies! Next we stopped at Ned's house (he's a boy who lives a few doors down), his mum was bound to have something (though she is a bit of an odd one)! Nat rang their bell and Ned's mum answered. She thought it was all very cute and she TOOK candy out of Nat's basket for Ned!!!! I couldn't believe it! Luckily we had put some smarties and chips in Nat's basket as decoys (for people to know what we wanted). Then she went away and returned with a Kiwi fruit, $2.20 and a firecracker!!!! How hilarious is that? I was thinking... "if the next house gives us drugs, we're going home." The rest of our street was a lost cause. People weren't home or just weren't answering their doors... but we got a few honks as we walked down the street and a few "thumbs up" from other parents. We made our way over to my friend Naomi's house (we brought candy for her two kids).... she grew up in England so she would surely have candy - plus she has two kids! Well, we got two lemons... literally. She gave Nat lemons! So now we have a basket with a Kiwi fruit, two lemons, $2.20, a few candies and a firecracker. It was the weirdest loot I've ever seen.

On our way home we saw another kid and his mom out trying to do the same. They had been out since 6pm (remember we didn't start till nearly 7:30). They advised us to drive over to the neighbourhood nearer to the school - there were a lot more kids there. So off we went... but by this time it was dark and it was still really hard to know where to go. The houses all had their lights off. I drove around until I saw a group of kids and parents. Nat hopped out and got some candy with them at a few houses. Then we made one more stop at Todd and Linda's (Raewyn's son)... and came home.

Nat was pooped and so was I... driving around looking for a place to get your kid free candy is MUCH harder than walking around the block carrying a pillow case.