It’s that time of year. Again. ‘All Hallows Eve’. Also known as ‘All Saint’s Day’ or ‘El Día del los Muertos’ in Spanish (especially so in Latin America). It’s Halloween!!! and that means dressing up in spooky costumes and ‘Trick or Treat’.

The kids love it. I can see why though. For me it is mostly about the free chocolate. But for the kids it’s at least equally to do with the dressing up.

The evening’s events began with some early planning. Dani and  few kids in our building decided to make a street map of the immediate area and mark out which houses had been decked out for the occasion. It would be their route map to treats later in the day. Not daft these kids eh? Determined to make efficient use of their time ‘trick or treating’.

Halloween Friendly Houses

The unwritten rule is that any house that has made the effort to decorate with anything related to Halloween is fair game for a bit of ‘trick or treating’. The others should be left in peace

In the morning we spotted one of the houses that made such a great effort last year also. Anyone afraid of spiders may want to look away. Even those of you who are not afraid of our eight legged friends might just get goose-bumps when you see this one. The scale of it is fantastic…

Dressed to Scare?

The kids just love dressing up for Halloween. Even if you don’t particularly like this celebration yourself you have to like the fact that they love it. Personally I quite like it and always did. But it’s much better when the kids are over-excited by their costumes.

No Tricks Required

All in all the group of kids – closely followed by us parents – visited some 20 houses. No tricks were required as each house we called at offered up some sugary treats which the kids grabbed at enthusiastically. If they ate half of what they collected the sugar rush would keep them awake right through the week.

Another good thing about going around the streets is that the kids come across other groups either doing the same thing or having Halloween parties in some of those houses. More costumes to check out and more high pitched screaming with excitement. Not good for the eardrums but great fun.

It was a relatively early start as tomorrow is a school day and most parents wanted to get it out of the way. Sort of…

It doesn’t get dark here now until after 7pm so it definitely felt a little bit odd doing this in daylight. More than that it had been quite a warm day. Not the best weather for dressing up and wearing full masks or face make-up. Very different from a northern hemisphere Halloween.

And then it was over…

And no sooner had it began; it was over. For another year…

Next stop, Dani’s eighth birthday.