Trick AND treating

The Aussies don't get Halloween. Every October, people start complaining about "yet another stupid American" thing that's made its way across the ocean. And every year, I roll my eyes, thinking "WHAT'S SO WRONG WITH CHILDREN DRESSING UP AND EATING CANDY?!?!?" I even wrote into the paper to say that Halloween was, in fact, Irish and that it was no longer about witches and evil. It was about make-believe and junk food! Lighten up Australia!

For some reason this year, the Aussies seemed to be embracing All Hallow's Eve a bit more. The firt few years I lived here, October went by without so much as a "boo!" But this year was different. Max was more aware of the holiday and somehow knew about trick-or-treating and dressing up. So we decided to dress up and celebrate Halloween...with other Americans! The American grocery store near Melbourne hosts Halloween every year, but they always do it on a Saturday and Dan usually plays cricket. Since he's injured this year, we planned to head down to Melbourne.

The biggest hurdle was....what to dress up as!? And since we're a group of five, with yours truly being the only woman, I had to do some big time thinking. But then the answer hit me like a candy covered apple...THE WIZARD OF OZ!!

So we hit the craft stores and dusted off the sewing machine to create a Dorothy, Scarecrow and Tinman costume. Funny enough, we already had a lion costume (one my grandmother had sent Max when he was a baby.)

Now, most men usually don't want to dress up and join in. Dan took a LOT of convincing to get into the Halloween spirit with us. The boys did a good job emotionally blackmailing daddy. "But dad!! It won't be the same without you!" And because I'm not THAT mean a wife, we worked Dan's costume so that alone, it wasn't really a costume, but when he was with the rest of us- it worked. With some paint and a sponge, he became the Yellow Brick Road!

The day turned out to be hot (30C!!) but we had fun. We won 1st place in the family division of the costume contest (A: The American had a huge advantage and B: Nothing beats a baby in a costume!!!)

We arrived back home around 7pm to find a few groups of kids trick-or-treating around the area, so we let the boys dress back up and hot a few homes that were participating. It gave us great joy to see them running down the block, all dressed up.