Ever since I was a child I have dreamt of experiencing Halloween in the United States. Halloween doesn’t exist in Australia. Well, it does, however not quite on the same scale. So my experience of Halloween to this point has been vicariously through motion pictures.
Halloween in Australia is largely viewed as an unwanted American influence – I routinely had doors slammed in my face as a child when we took to the streets begging strangers for candy; my parents might buy one small bag of chocolate each year for the 3 or 4 children who come knocking on our door.
While halloween in Australia may be growing in momentum, the festivities aren’t even in the same league as those in the United States of America. I’ve never carved a pumpkin into a Jack-o-lantern, I’ve never bobbed for apples, I’ve never lighted a bonfire, and I have never been through a haunted house. You have to spend a considerable amount of time looking through Australian shops to find one which carries Halloween costumes, where-as every shop down to the grocery stores in America have entire aisles dedicated to different aspects of Halloween!
So this past week I’ve been having the time of my life in the lead up to what will be my biggest day of the year. We’ve visited haunted houses, gone on haunted swamp walks, spent a month choosing kick ass costumes, and picked out our very own pumpkin from Florida’s biggest pumpkin patch! I wrote on the time off calendar at the Marriott:
Megan has dreamed of Halloween in the United States her whole life. Don’t kill the dream.
I genuinely would have quit before work got in the way of my first US halloween experience! I told them I am happy to work Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years – just not Halloween.
Now I just have two days left to steal a child to go trick or treating with!
Picking out a pumpkin.
Warty pumpkins are the new trend!
Deciding on my costume…a scarecrow perhaps??!
Maybe a witch suits me better??!
Excited for Halloween!!
Excursion to a pumpkin patch!
18 Comments
Haha…this made me giggle. I didn’t realize until I started traveling that other countries didn’t have Halloween!! I’m in Honduras now, where it doesn’t exist (except in the gringo community). Hope you love it!!
Such a tragedy that such a fun holiday isn’t a global event lol! I’ve seriously been waiting for this my whole life hehe. I’ll surely be posting photos come Friday :D
You’re living my dream too! The UK doesn’t do Halloween on the same scale as the USA, although I am off to the London Dungeons for a Halloween special tonight! Have a great time and Happy Halloween!
London Dungeons should be pretty amazing for Halloween – if there’s ever been a city with a bloody, spooky past it would be London :D!! You too – have an amazing time :)
Looks like you are enjoying every aspect of Halloween ! You have to travel up to Salem, MA one October that is an incredible place to spend the month of October… the only thing is it probably will be much colder than Florida :)
We are indeed – carving out a pumpkin today…will see how good my carving skills are lol. Will have to add Salem to the list – I can deal with the cold for the experience! :D Thanks for the tip!
Haha this is awesome, did you pick out a costume? Glad to hear you’re making the most of it!
Buying face paint to finish off my costume tonight – think I’m going to go with “scary” and be a zombie :D
I admittedly am really not into Halloween. We would rather not be home, to avoid the few kids who DO some trick or treating in Auckland! We landed in the US in Sep 22 and already Halloween stuff was all over the place and houses were decorated. Crazy. We’ll be in Oranga County for Halloween tomorrow night so that should be interesting.
It definitely takes hold of the US early on – it’s a full blown consumer holiday like Christmas or Thanksgiving – lol you should have SEEN the amount of last minute candy which was being purchased at the grocery store this afternoon – crazy!
Happy Halloween! Hope you have a great night :)
So happy you got to experience you first Halloween! Halloween in Korea isn’t really a thing, but some of the shops do sell a few decorations and costumes. It’s nice to see it around.
I saw on facebook that you went trick-or-treating. Did you ever find a kid to go with or did your go as adults?? If you went alone that cracks me up and I’d love to hear what kind of reactions you got at the door.
We just went as adults lol we were kid enough :D
I pulled the “I’m Australian and it’s my first Halloween” and people went nuts giving me candy hehehe!
I always kind of forget that Halloween isn’t a thing in every country. Halloween was definitely a favourite holiday for me as a kid – I mean dressing up and getting candy, what’s not to love? In Canada we pretty much celebrate Halloween like they do in the US, except where I live it’s often cold enough and snowing so you have to have a Halloween costume that can fit over a snowsuit. This year it was pretty nice, albeit quite windy, for Halloween.
My husband grew up in Minnesota near the Canadian border and he was telling me they would often go trick or treating through snow some years. He was telling me stories about these kids that would get all dressed up and then no one would ever see the costumes because they were covered by jackets and snow suits!!
Sure it was still a blast though :D Happy Halloween!!
This made me smile :) trying to make Halloween work in Australia was so hard I finally put up the flag and settled for Spaghetti night instead.
I’m glad you got to experience one of my favorite holidays and hoped every inch of it lived up to the expectations!
Lol I love a good spaghetti night! :D
It lived up to every one of my expectations! I went trick or treating and ditched the adult parties – pulled the “I’m Australian and this is my first Halloween” and they THREW chocolate and candy at me lol felt so sick after eating it all…at once of course!!
Halloween is my favorite holiday. I’ve discovered staying home and handing out candy to the trick or treaters is as fun as going myself – and only partly because it means I get to eat all the best candies myself.
This is true! I’m still interested to know if any one actually ever pulls any “tricks” instead of treats on halloween!