Halloween

Halloween in England is much different from the Americanized version.  Although, it is growing a tiny bit every year to match what is seen in Hocus Pocus (which, I would say, is the most accurate screen version of what to expect in America for a classic Halloween night--minus the raising of the dead and stalking by the Sanderson Sisters).  Even in the last six years that I've lived here, I have seen the decoration choices and murmurings of parties grow exponentially.  Having said that, the holiday is still much different to what I grew up with and it is still a day that just comes and goes without much pressure to impress anyone with outfit choices or outdoor decor.  Here's a tale of two Halloweens:

My Ohio Halloweens

Mostly, our costumes were homemade or pieced together with charity shop purchases.  One year, my mom crafted robot costumes out of boxes and dryer ducting for my sister and me!  Another year, she bought a wedding dress from a charity shop, cut, hemmed, and dyed it golden yellow and presto!  A homemade Belle gown from Beauty and the Beast was created.  All-in-all, costumes in Ohio were happy and wholesome and served as the one chance per year that we got to dress-up outside of the house.  Putting a lot of effort into the costume, make-up, and hair was worth it because until we were about 10- or 11-years old, we would have a Halloween party at school where we could parade our costumes around to everyone else and show-off our parents' handiwork. 

Now, when it came time for the big day to go around the neighbourhood trick-or-treating, we had one hour to gather the goods.  It was always the Thursday before Halloween (a couple of times, it actually ended up being on the 31st) and it was usually from 6-7 P.M. so that no one was out and about after dusk.  In my neighbourhood at least, there were probably a couple of hundred children trick-or-treating and sometimes, people would bring their kids from other neighbourhoods.  Children who lived in the country where they didn't really have 'neighbours' would also come in for the night.  We also always had school the next day so we needed to be home in time to get enough sleep. 

A lot of people decorated the outside of their homes (mainly the porches) with autumnal things such as corn stalks, bales of hay, different coloured dried corn cobs, and pumpkins.  Some people also used scary decorations and had hidden 'tricks' to make their visitors jump.

Before or after the trick-or-treating, sometimes people would have parties at their houses with powdered doughnuts, apple cider (pressed apple juice, in the UK), the bobbing for apples game, the Monster Mash playing in the background, and possibly some 'frightening food' mimicking ghoulish items one would see in a scary movie.

Note:  On the rare occasion, there was a house without their porch light on which meant that they were not handing-out candy that year.  There may be a few houses whose owners were not home, but they wanted to participate, so they left a huge bowl of candy out with a sign that read, "Please take one."

An English Halloween

Most of the schools' half-term breaks coincide with the 31st so they can technically knock on doors to ask for treats all day.  This doesn't mean that they do, though.  In the past six years, I have given candy to eight children.  Without a school Halloween party, the children mostly have Halloween celebrations at their houses or at a social club; but, that is if they have one at all.

Some neighbourhoods have a couple of houses with decorations, but they are extremely rare.  Here, the stores are mainly where one would see fake cobwebs and ghosts adorning the windows.  There are pumpkins for sale in the stores (at relatively cheap prices), but I haven't seen too many sitting out on people's porches. 

Most of the costumes are store-bought in the UK and they are truly frightening choices 99% of the time.  In my classroom, the common costumes were dead bride, dead cheerleader, skeleton, and rotting zombie.  Ew!  I think the English go super scary for Halloween because they have no reservations when it comes to dressing up at any time of the year.  Costumes are referred to as 'fancy dress' here and anyone at any age can have a fancy dress party whenever they want and it is completely socially acceptable.  So, at Halloween, that is their time to be as terrifying as possible with their costumes.  (Not being able to assimilate with this idea, Jackson will be a pirate this year.  Not a dead one, either.  A live, jolly, beautifully put-together pirate.)

Digging out the seeds

Ew!  Jackson didn't stick his hands in to touch the goop

After about five minutes, Jackson moved on to play with his cars, but it was fun while it lasted

Developmental updates:  Wow!  Jackson is getting really good at repeating everything we say.  He doesn't say the phrases again on his own, but he's in the beginning stages of putting meaning to these new words.  Jackson seems to be improving in his football dribbling skills, but we're still working on getting him to participate with all of the drills and games and take his turn at the right time.  We went to get his hair cut yesterday and it went much better than last time.  There were a few toys in a separate room which made Jackson feel 'at home' and then with some little chocolate cookies and his 'Blaze' show on the iPad, he made it through the whole hair cut without any tears!  Jackson is now cut off from the bottle.  We packed them all away and went cold turkey.  At nursery, he has open cups, so it shouldn't be too hard of a transition; also, if it's his only choice to use a cup and he's thirsty, then he will hopefully accept the change willingly.  This week was the dawning of the rolled-up sleeves.  Any long-sleeved shirts are too bothersome for Jackson and he has to have them pushed up past his elbows.  Jackson has been entertaining us with his exaggerated fake sneezing this week, too. 

If you see Sammie Miles Davis, Jr. and Bella, give them my love.