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!
9 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!!
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!
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 :)
Haha this is awesome, did you pick out a costume? Glad to hear you’re making the most of it!
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.