Halloween in New Zealand

We just got back from taking Paisley trick-or-treating here in Auckland! [Well, we were when I wrote this post.  Now that I am posting this, it is 1 November here, but still Halloween in the US.]

We were not really sure what to expect, but here is the report:

About 1 out of every 4 houses in our neighborhood was passing out candy.

Houses that are celebrating Halloween usually do something to decorate so that you know to stop at their house: almost all have cobwebs out on the bushes by the sidewalk.  Some have skeleton decorations, or fake rodents in the yard.  Some people scatter fake limbs around their walkway or the front door. Note: we decorated our door with a big banner and spooky characters on the windows and I think a lot of trick-or-treaters skipped our house because there were no webs on the bushes.  I even bought webs, but didn't put them up because I didn't get to it.  I didn't realize it was so important.

Some of the houses did not decorate, and then it seemed like they would come outside so that people knew they could go to those houses.

A few houses had signs up to let people know they were not participating.

Most of the houses just had the webs or simple decorations but a couple houses that we went to were more elaborate.  One of the houses had a lady open the door as a scary nurse, and she had it so there was a bed with a life-size patient with a fork in his eye and there was a whole little medical scene going on behind her, as if you'd caught her busy with her situation.  Another house had a giant face on the front of the house.  There were a couple houses where parents were kind of congregating and having drinks together out in the front yard.  We didn't participate in that, but as we walked past they invited us to come up so Paisley could trick or treat right there in the front yard and someone brought up a box of candy.

Kids do say "trick-or-treat!" when they go up to the door here.  The interaction is pretty similar to in the United States; they often told Paisley she was cute.  A few people correctly identified Paisley as Elsa from Frozen.  One person asked if she was a fairy.  Some of the people were friendlier than you would normally find in the United States, asking us how we were doing, or having a little conversation with us. 

Almost all of the houses pass out bulk-type candy, and they often let kids take 2 or 3.  Paisley got one Twix and a couple Cadburry chocolates, a few suckers, and a bunch of little chewy or hard candies, plus a few unwrapped type candies. To be fair, I think one or two other houses had some "good" candies but they let Paisley pick what she wanted and she chose the bulk-type candies.  I saw some kids who had gotten ring pops somewhere and I wished we would have found that house because we were not planning to let Paisley eat many of her candies, but I think she would have enjoyed that.  That's okay.

Of the kids that we saw out trick-or-treating, most were in scary type costumes: skeletons, scary masks, devils, bloody stuff, witches.  Some were in other types of costumes: two kids came to our door as Thing 1 and Thing 2, we saw a girl dressed as Pikachu, and there were some kids with bunny ears or animal costumes like that.  We saw a little kid that was a Tigger, and one boy that was a ninja turtle.  Our biggest surprise was, we saw about 200 kids while we were out and all night we did not see any other Elsa costumes, or even any Frozen costumes at all.  Only in New Zealand would you have an evening full of trick-or-treaters and not see any other Elsa costumes at all!

We had a lot of fun.  Paisley got to be pretty good at trick-or-treating.  We went to the houses in our cul-de-sac and then part of the street around the corner from us.  We watched for "spooky houses" (aka. decorated houses) and then she went up to the front door and kept knocking until they opened.  Then she said "trick or treat!" and put candy in her bag and said "thank you" and sometimes said "Happy Halloween!"  Some of the people thought she was little to be trick-or-treating, so they thought it was really adorable when she said the right things.

We decided to let her keep two of her candies to eat.  She was fine with that.  At first she was choosing the bulk-type candies, so I pointed out that she did have chocolate, since I know she loves chocolate and thought she would enjoy having some that was her very own.  After I told her she had chocolate, she wanted that.  She really enjoyed those and made a big mess of them, dripping all over her clothes.

Then, when other kids came to our door after we got home she wanted to go trick-or-treating again.  She liked standing on the porch and knocking so that I could open and say "Hello?" and she would say "Trick or treat!" and I would hand her a candy, she thanked me, and I would say "Happy Halloween!" and close the door.  Then she would knock again and I would open the door and take the candy back, and then she would knock again to repeat the whole thing.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween in Carrasco, Uruguay!

Today is Halloween, and here in Uruguay we were not really sure what to expect.

At first, we just assumed that Halloween was basically an American thing so it wouldn't really be happening here, or if it did happen here it would be very limited.

Then we started seeing Halloween stuff at stores.  Mainly, just at grocery stores.  The bigger the grocery store, the bigger the Halloween section, buuuut it's still almost nothing.  So, the giant superstore (called, of course, Geant) had a few islands in the middle of the store with about 5 or 6 very cheap costumes in assorted sizes, some fake fangs maybe, and a couple islands with what appeared to be Halloween candy.  Regular grocery stores carry less than that.  Everywhere else, it seems as if Halloween doesn't exist.

I haven't noticed any pumpkins or jack-o-lanterns.  I was thinking about that, though, and I wonder if it may have to do with the difference of seasons.  In the United States, Halloween occurs in the fall, right after summer, when things (like pumpkins) are being harvested.  Here in Uruguay, this is spring.  Instead of a nice warm summer for growing pumpkins, we've just come through winter, which (as far as I know) is not suitable for growing pumpkins.  So, I think if they wanted to carve pumpkins here, the pumpkins would have to be imported from somewhere in the northern hemisphere, or at least somewhere closer to the equator below the equator.  Imports are expensive here--most imports are taxed at about 60%--so particularly with pumpkins (which are heavy, so the freight charges would be more)--they would be expensive to get to Uruguay for Halloween.  Maybe they could at least have pumpkin shaped plastic stuff, though?  I haven't really noticed any.

Halloween decorations in general have been almost nowhere, and when we have seen them (I think maybe at a grocery store sometime) they are always minimal and isolated to a tiny spot (such as one sign that says HALLOWEEN! or something).  I have not seen any decorated houses.

But then we heard that they celebrate Halloween here similarly to how it is celebrated in the United States.  Huh.  What would that mean?  Do kids dress up in costumes for school?  Could they actually go trick-or-treating?  Security is a little intense here--every house in our area is gated, most houses have well marked security systems, lots of houses have multiple barky guard dogs, some houses have on-site security guards...anyway, it's not like kids could just come up and ring your doorbell to go trick-or-treating.  Or, they could, but they would be doing it out at the street, not right at your door.  When we were living in Centro (in downtown Montevideo) the situation was similar.  There, people had apartments instead of houses, but the apartments typically have guards or at least a doorman, so I don't know how that would work for trick-or-treaters.  Do they trick-or-treat just by ringing doorbells down at the street?  (Is it cheating if you ring 20 people at once and say "trick-or-treat" to all of them at the same time??)  So the logistics were really unclear to us.

We were looking at the little Halloween islands at Geant earlier this week and I asked a lady (in my best Spanish, lacking Halloween vocabulary) if kids go to houses for candy in this country.  She grinned and said they do.  So we decided to buy candy just in case.

The choices for Halloween candy were:
- large pastel-colored marshmallows in a twisty shape (not individually packaged)
- large pastel-colored marshmallows in a flower shape (not individually packaged)
- candies that look like they might be fruit flavored and chewy (individually wrapped!)
- suckers (individually wrapped!)

There were TONS of marshmallows!  We felt a little funny about giving kids unwrapped treats, so we grabbed a bag of maybe-fruit-chew candies and then also a bag of the suckers.  Jeff was like, "Oh, no, Em, if we get these aren't they going to not like the candy from our house?  What about the fun-size good candies like Snickers?"  and I said, "Uhhhh, this is all they have.  They don't have fun-size Snickers or Twix or any of that stuff!  Look around, this is all there is.  So...if they only have this, do you think they'll just like it anyway, because that's all anyone has to give them?"  We decided it would have to do.  The maybe-fruit-chew candies came packaged with a special collector edition cup shaped like a werewolf, but we also could have chosen one with a skull cup or one of a couple other options.

Would we have anyone to give our Halloween candy to?

Then I started feeling a little bad that Paisley is not having much of a Halloween experience this year, even though it is a year where she could really understand a little bit about it and enjoy participating.  I taught her how to say "Trick or Treat" (and she says it, if you ask her for each word).  I decided to look for a simple costume at a grocery store--last minute--in case we could take her somewhere nearby to trick-or-treat at a couple houses.  (I ended up just finding a little witch hat. "GREEN!")  Tonight we painted with some Halloween colors.

I started to wonder if maybe Halloween was celebrated as Day of the Dead or All Souls Day or something else, in the next couple days.

Then, early this evening we had our first group of trick-or-treaters!  There were four kids.  One of the kids was probably about 3 years old and he was wrapped up as a mummy.  His eyes had dark make-up on them, and his costume looked quite good.  The other kids had kind of lame costumes, like the typical grocery store collection: a vampire cape or witch hat here or there.  I don't remember the specifics because they were not very memorable.

I wondered what they would say.  Do they say "trick-or-treat" here?  Probably not, since it isn't Spanish.

Nothing.  They said nothing at all.

So, I gave them each a few suckers.  The parents nearby called out "Gracias!" and I said "Gracias!" right back to them.  Then I immediately felt kind of dumb because what was I thanking them for, coming to get candy?  It was one of those silly things like when someone tells you to have a good trip and without thinking about it you say, "You too!" even though of course that doesn't make any sense.

So they were candied-up, and they left.

We had one more set of trick-or-treaters a couple hours later, as I was in the middle of putting Paisley to bed.  Instead, I took her down to pass out candy with me.  That time, it was a little Spiderman (in a full costume including mask) and a bloody ghost, with their dad.  Also silent.  So I gave them each a few suckers.  I should have given them a whole bag of candy each, because that was the end of our trick-or-treaters.  

I didn't take Paisley anywhere with her little witch hat, because I never did figure out what we were supposed to say, or if much of anywhere would even be expecting us.

Happy Halloween!

(Hopefully soon I will start to take pictures to go along with posts.)

Halloween!

While J and I were apart, I heard about Halloween at Chipotle. A guy from Jessica's student ward told us about it. Basically, if you dress as a burrito, Chipotle will give you a free burrito. The guy said that you don't actually have to dress as a burrito, you just need to wear some aluminum foil (because Chipotle wraps their burritos in foil). ANY foil. He said that last year he went as an Indian. He made a headband with a feather out of foil, and went in and got his free burrito.

I decided that if J and I were dating again by then, we would definitely need to go. J and I used to eat at Chipotle all the time!

So, when J and I started dating again, I told him we should go.

And then, we went to Chipotle together and they had little papers advertising it. And we decided we would for sure go. I told J we could wrap him in foil and he could be a burrito, and we could take a box and cut it in half, and add green tissue paper and pieces of red and brown paper (tomatoes and steak), and I could be a taco.


But as we talked more about it, J was worried that our costumes would suck. He wanted us to Google it to see past Halloween costumes for Chipotle. BEST IDEA EVER.

We did not find many pictures, but we did find a few that we used to inspire our costumes.

We decided to both be burritos. Foil was going to be a disaster (it would tear if we put it on ahead, and it would be difficult to assemble at Chipotle), but online people were using emergency blankets instead. Brilliant!

For our tortillas, I used duck cloth, which I already had. We bought thick yellow yarn for cheese. We used green tissue paper and red and brown paper for steak and tomatoes. J constructed them while I got ready to go.


Everyone loved our costumes. It was fantastic! In the parking lot we put our costumes on, and people pointed and grinned at us. These people near us who were wrapping themselves in foil told us we each deserved five burritos.


In line inside, everyone commented on our costumes. We were the coolest people in the restaurant. People took cellphone pictures of us on the sly. We loved it!


While we were eating our burritos, a girl who was working at Chipotle came out and told us we had the best costumes of the evening, and asked if it would be all right for her to take our picture. (Sure!) They also gave us chips and guacamole for free, since it was closing time.

New Job

In my last blog post, I mentioned that I had a job interview today.

I went. It was about what I expected. (Did you guys know I'm good at interviewing for jobs? Because I am.)

And they offered me the job!

I never really know how much to say about work on my blog. SO, basically, I'm working at my school library. In one of the departments. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. And it's going to work so so much better with my school schedule than Ancestry did. (Which is to say, I can SLEEP now!) And I don't have to take public transportation to get there.

I start on Monday. Today I exchanged my student ID for an employee magic door-opener card.

Just a couple other random thoughts--

I thoroughly enjoy people dressing up for work on Halloween. The guy who made my new student ID was a vampire! At first I only noticed his fangs and suit, but then partway through our exchange, I realized he had red eyes. Neat. Also, there was a gypsy serving food at one of the restaurants on campus.

On that same note, there are some quality Halloween episodes of things that are worth watching. The Office and Making Fiends come to mind.

And one last thing, and this is sad: as I was reading the NYT during lunch today, I read a story about MiShawna Moore and Sanders-Clyde Elementary. Basically, the lady was like Mother Teresa at the school. When families didn't have anymore food stamps, they came to her, she helped people with their electricity bills, and bought a bunch of turkeys for Thanksgiving and food baskets, etc. I guess the school really became like, a community center. And the school was like all these poor black kids. And after they got all this attention, they started thriving. All these kids that couldn't read became proficient readers, and stuff. And the school became an inspiration. MiShawna Moore won a bunch of awards. And people were saying anyone, if they're given the right attention, can succeed. EXCEPT, oh wait, turns out they can't. They started monitoring the testing at the school and then the principal takes off, really randomly. And scores drop from 84.6 percent to 44.4 percent on the third grade science test. And kids who are transferring to other schools, like, just because, are not thriving anymore. And when they go back to look at old tests, each kid has like 7 erasure marks to correct answers, when usually the average for that sort of thing is one per kid. And the saddest thing of all is, everyone had hope, but it turned out to be in nothing. Because the kids still can't read.

I don't really know what to think about that.

I did think it was an interesting story, though.