Hello, Tom here. I'm sure you've been wondering - how does New Zealand do Halloween? Does everyone dress up as orcs and goblins and hobbits? Turns out, they basically don't do it much at all. Some kids dress up, but it is hard to go trick-or-treating as most people would wonder why you were banging on their door, looking for candy. The fellow behind me in line at the store where I bought costumes for the kids asked me if I was getting ready for Halloween and then asked me when it was. This was on October 29th.
The options for costumes were very limited. Aidan was a scary scythe-wielding skeleton and Jasper was The Devil You Know. Here they are battling in front of our house:
Here they are, apparently reconciled:
We went downtown. The small shopping district hosts an event where the retail stores give out little chocolate eggs (so Halloween!) to kids if they come by in costume. Strangely, only about half the retail stores were participating, so about half the time the kids entered some shoe store and come out empty handed. Here they are downtown:
Here is the scene in downtown Taupo. There were a fair number of people out and about:
We had met up with a few friends and were trolling the retail stores together. My favorite part of the event was the behavior of one of the children with us who wouldn't take no for an answer. There were a few eateries that weren't participating in the egg-distribution scheme, but he insisted on getting something, so once the kids came out each eating a broken piece of bread and once they came out eating little pieces of Turkish Delight which they promptly spat out into the trash. Good on him.
After the downtown fun, we went to a friend's house. Our friends are Dutch, not American, but they had told us their neighborhood had had lots of trick-or-treaters last year, so we should wander their neighborhood this year. This met with mixed success. At many houses, no one answered the door. One woman came out dressed as a witch and gave each of the kids lemons. Several times the kids got handfuls of unwrapped candies. Here is a photo of a typical effort - at least here they got some candy.
Rene and I manned the house in case anyone came looking for candy while Evelyn and Rene's wife took all the kids around the neighborhood. Rene insisted we put hats on, so we did.
Afterwards, it was still light out, as it is spring here, so the kids went out and took off their shirts and bounced on a trampoline. So Halloween!
Here is a photo of one boy's candy haul. Yes, that's an apple. Yes, that's a candy cane. Yes, those are chocolate eggs.
I am hoping that Christmas and New Year's come closer to my expectations of these holidays. What says Happy New Year's like a barbecue on the beach?
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