Happy Halloween!

Another year, another Halloween rolls by. It’s always been one of my favourite events of the year, dating to back to my bewildered early childhood years in the American community in Saudi Arabia. The Americans really do take their Halloween seriously! And I earnestly applaud that. Any tradition that requires you to go from house to house, collecting sweets, then taking them home to horde and gorge on in private is a tradition for me, to be sure!

When I was little, every year around late September, my mother would ask me what I wanted to be for Halloween. It was always a fairy or something like that (I was that kind of girl). My mother would then look through the bits and pieces of clothing and fabric we had around the house, and make me a costume. My brothers would be cats or policemen or vampires. I have no idea how my mother did it; it’s one of her skills I didn’t inherit as I grew up. I can cook, I can clean, I know how to bank my money, but sewing is one of those mysterious abilities I never seemed to absorb.

Finally the day would arrive! Lessons at school were cancelled for the afternoon. We’d assemble excitedly after lunch, wearing our costumes, and the Halloween parade would begin. The whole Elementary school was involved. Mothers lined the street outside the school, and there’d be a few fathers too, men who worked shifts at the oil refinery. There was lots of cheering, laughter and clicking of cameras as the children paraded by. There’d be the shy little kindergartners and first graders, tiny little things in the sweetest little costumes. Older children would swagger with bravado or try to act cool (a little difficult with an audience of mothers going “Awwww! Look at THAT one! How cute!” There were always lots of witches and at least one coke vending machine (yes, you read that correctly).

After the parade, there’d be a party in your classroom. Sometimes there’d be bobbing for apples, and a mother or two would turn up a really sweet cake. The classroom would be decorated with the Halloween artwork we’d been working on. It really was fun. And we knew we had trick or treating to look forward to in the evening. The official trick or treating times were decided by someone in the community and published in the community newsletter ahead of time. There would just be time to go home after school, change out of your costume, do a bit of homework, have dinner, then put the costume back on again and meet your friends.

It was always a nice evening in Saudi Arabia on Halloween, warm, sometimes a bit too warm if you were wearing a very elaborate disguise. It felt a little awkward knocking on the first couple of doors, but soon the ice was broken and you’d be running around the neighbourhood, your plastic pumpkin getting heavier and heavier with loot! As darkness fell, the people switched on their porch light, often shaded with a plastic, pumpkin-shaped cover so that it glowed orange. Many Americans went further and had hollowed out pumpkins lit up on their front doorsteps. Or they’d dress up and sit out on the front lawn with their neighbours, and try and scare you as they handed out treats. Even the air smelled different at Halloween. The scent of flowers carried on the warm air, and it seemed like the smell of burnt sugar, too.

As you ran around the compound, patches of darkness in the distance would move and glow sticks flicker, and you’d know it was another group of children doing the rounds. Sometimes they’d shout directions, if they’d been to a particularly prolific area!

Eventually, the porch lights would be switched off, and tired and overburdened with sugar, we’d return home for the important business of sorting our sweets, swapping with siblings the things we didn’t like until a mutually satisfactory arrangement was reached. Primitive optimal utility at work!

As an adult, I continued to enjoy Halloween in Saudi Arabia almost as much as when I was a child. My mother and I would walk over to the school on Halloween to watch the parade. It was pretty good because we knew lots of the children. For trick or treating, I’d have decorated the front of the house with fake cobweb from the community shop, complete with black plastic spiders. What a great look! I dressed up as a witch too, and parked myself at the front door with sacks of sweets. I even made vanilla fudge. It was such a hit the first year that I made it every year, the day before Halloween, wrapping it up in little packages in wax paper when it had set. It was so much fun, seeing the kids in their costumes, especially the shy little toddlers. Sometimes I wouldn’t even recognise them, until the mother hovering in the background called out hello and identified them for me. How funny!

So I went to Woollies this lunchtime and bought some bags of ‘fun size’ chocolate bars (would be more fun if they were bigger). Tonight I’ll be waiting expectantly at my front door, in my witch outfit, waiting for the children to come, like some sad, childless, baby-stealing madwoman. It’s a bit disappointing to me that Halloween hasn’t taken off outside America. I shouldn’t bother, I know. After all, I’m the first to cry ‘cultural imperialism’ every time we pick up yet another unfortunate American tradition. I guess I associate Halloween with good times and can’t let go.

Have a spooky Halloween, everyone!