Halloween Convert

When I was a child, I always wanted to go trick or treating, but Halloween wasn’t celebrated much in Australia at the time.

Then, around ten years ago, Australian supermarkets brought Halloween to life by stocking a plethora of Halloween paraphernalia, including outfits for young and old vampires, wizards, witches, skeletons, pirates, lights in plastic skulls, talking ravens in cages, plastic buckets for collecting treats, veiny jelly eyes and dismembered jelly fingers.

Because I didn’t grow up with Halloween, it always felt so American to me. This year I decided to become a Halloween convert because I knew some young scary folks would come trick or treating at my place.

To get ready, I surveyed the shelves at my local supermarket. I saw a purple nylon wig, but I decided to buy it at the last minute when it was on special. Instead I bought a kit to make Halloween decorations.

These are the instructions.

I strung half of the decorations together using the string provided with the kit and hung them on my front door to welcome the trick or treaters.

I strung together the remaining decorations to make a necklace for my Halloween outfit.

On Halloween I went back to the supermarket, hoping the prices had been reduced to half price. They had been, but I’d left it too late to buy a purple wig because none were left. Instead I bought a witch’s hat.

Part of my Halloween outfit.

I also bought some serviettes to wrap the lollies in.

These spindly spiders remind me of the soot sprites in Studio Ghibli’s My Neighbour Totoro and Spirited Away. Soot sprites are called susuwatari in Japanese, which can also be translated as ‘dust bunnies.’

Finally the trick or treaters arrived, a scary troupe of wizards, a witch and a skeleton. A few minutes later they’d gone, their plastic buckets fuller than when they’d arrived.

During the Halloween aftermath, I reflected that I was glad I’d become a Halloween convert even though my preparations had taken far longer than the actual trick or treating.

These are the leftover pieces of the Halloween decoration kit.

I’ll use them for other craft projects, especially the googly eyes.

Even though Halloween's over, I’m still receiving junk mail for spooky Halloween sales.

Apparently Thanksgiving is taking root in Australia. I’ve yet to see retailers promoting it. At the moment they’re busy with Christmas.