Halloween--Part 2

From what we'd heard from friends and branch members, Halloween in Maadi (where the church is and where most expats live) is somewhat out of control. There are big crowds of teenagers and eggs are involved--hundreds of them. And the eggs are given out by the policemen. So we were thinking our Halloween would be another family party.

We were pleasantly surprised when someone in our compound started making plans for Halloween festivities within the compound. She had to do a bit of convincing though. Several emails were sent out describing the origins of Halloween and how it has evolved today into something fun for kids and adults as well--not some sort of devil-worshiping holiday or anything but just fun.

I thought it was humorous that as they were planning the trick-or-treating part of the events that she had to send out an email describing exactly how to trick or treat since most of the people in our compound have never done it. It was interesting to see this holiday through the eyes of some who have never experienced it before.

The Thursday night before Halloween we had a pumpkin-carving party at the Health Club. Many, if not all, had never carved pumpkins before. At first there was some concern as to why we would let children take sharp knives and use them to cut into these hard gourds. But it was explained that it is all done under the supervision of parents and there are tools that kids can use to make them safe. And even if the children don't do the cutting, they can help to plan the design and help pull out the seeds and gunk from the insides. The pumpkins here aren't like the pumpkins in the States either. They're much harder and oddly-shaped. We had fun though taking part in this tradition even if it wasn't tradition for most of the people there.

Then on Saturday night was the trick-or-treating. Like I said, an email went out explaining the details of trick-or-treating. The email also said tricks of any kind would not be tolerated in the compound. Attached to the email was a list of homes that had agreed to be on the trick-or-treating route because not everyone in the compound was taking part in the festivities. We were to stick to the list of "approved houses." We had put our names on the list. Petey handed out candy while Todd took the rest of our kids out around the neighborhood.

In between trick-or-treaters, Mohammad, our boab, asked Petey why all these kids were running around the neighborhood and coming up to our door and wanted to know if she wanted him to chase them away if they were bothering us. Petey explained in her best Arabic that it was Halloween. He just stared blankly at her. Then she tried to explain it's an American holiday where people go around to each other's houses and get candy. Another blank stare. I'm sure he was wondering why a majority Egyptian compound was celebrating this American holiday. But Petey assured him that it was all in fun and we didn't mind all the people knocking on our door and it would be over by 7. (The email had specific times for trick-or-treating.)

I remember when I was growing up I really liked Halloween. We didn't live in a neighborhood with houses close by so I remember my dad loading us up in the car and driving to several people's houses to do our trick-or-treating. I've been a bit sad that my younger kids don't remember trick-or-treating and my older kids missed out on the last couple of years of it and my middle kids are missing out on the best years for trick-or-treating. So I was happy that this year we got back some of that tradition. It really can be a fun holiday.



After the trick-or-treating we had a family party planned by the older kids. They'd had these plans in the works before we knew the compound was going to have their festivities. We bobbed for apples and ate homemade donuts (delicious but they took forever and made such a mess!) from a string.

Here's T bobbing for apples. My family used to do this as well and I don't know I wasn't more grossed out by it growing up. Now in my older years I'm grossed out by it but my kids had fun doing it and that's all that matters. However, after T's turn all the kids wanted the water changed before they took their turns.