Halloween in Review 2010

Usually I am Miss Halloween. I decorate inside and out, we start watching the Halloween movies in September so that we will have time to watch them all before the big day. Back when we had a house in the states there were spiderwebs, black lights, ghosts, scarecrows, luminarias, a jack-o-lantern for each of us and a few extras just because I could. This year though Halloween just sort of snuck up on me. I don't know what happened. Pitiful really.

Somehow I didn't really realize it was almost Halloween until Friday the day of the embassy Halloween party. The boys (with a little pressure from Dad) agreed to wear costumes from years past so once again we had a pair of grim reapers, same as last year. Dakota was either a construction worker or one of the guys from the Village People you choose.



Nobody knows quite what Grayson was but he raided the dress up box and came out wearing a Safari hat from a friend's long ago birthday party party, Colin's old Venom costume from 3 years ago, and a bumble bee vest from Halloween 2004, he seemed pleased with his costume so I guess that's all that matters.


As for Dave and I we also raided the kid's dress up box and came out with two gorilla masks. We apparently have been watching way too much Dancing With the Stars becuase we thought we were being clever by dressing as Bristol Palin and her dance partner Mark Ballas a couple weeks ago when they did the jive to "Hey Hey We're the Monkees" while wearing gorilla suits.

One problem I am now pretty sure we are the only people in Malawi that actually watch Dancing With the Stars. By the end on the night I was getting tired of explaining out costumes. If you have to explain your costume it's a fail.




Our costumes may have been a fail but the embassy party was a success. There were games, costume contests, food and of course trick-or-treating. The kids came home with a bag of candy and big smiles.


Saturday was the International Women's Association of Malawi Bazaar which in no way had anything to do with Halloween but was a lot of fun. We gave each of the kids some money and let them shop around for some treasures. Alonzo came back with a huge plant with a flower taller than himself, Colin came back with a carved wooden letter opener shaped like a dagger and a couple of wooden elephants, and Grayson and Dakota came back with a pile of rocks and crystals from the gemology booth. David and I just bought some food and drinks.

Sunday, that would be Halloween Day, the only thing we did to celebrate was to make homemade caramel apples and watched Halloweentown. Somehow that was on the only Halloween movie we watched this year, we didn't even watch the Great Pumpkin. Next year I will get my act together and carve some jack-o-lanterns, put up some decorations, order costumes and candy and watch all the movies. Next up Thanksgiving. I better get my act together, I wonder if you can buy a turkey in Malawi?