Expat Halloween…Is it a Trick or Treat?

 

For anyone not living where they grew up, the holidays can be a ‘tricky’ time. We get used to celebrating in a particular way and when tradition is disrupted, ghoulish feelings can emerge. Halloween isn’t a particularly ‘memory-laden’ holiday, but memories are memories; I have a friend who grew up in the suburbs trolling her neighborhood collecting candy. She felt a little twinge every time her city kids spent their Halloween riding an elevator, going door to door in an apartment building collecting theirs.

For those who move to another country, Halloween, if celebrated at all, may be an expat only event, but why limit the fun? Halloween is a terrific holiday for creating a sense of community. The more people participate, the more fun everyone can have.

I spent many Halloweens in the UK, where the holiday was generally not celebrated. Pumpkins were not sold and children did not go trick-or-treating.   Basically, if we wanted Halloween, we had to create it ourselves.  American friends who were living in rural England decided to play up their ‘brash American’ stereotype and create a holiday celebration that everyone would remember. Halloween was approaching and they wanted their kids to be able to celebrate, so they decided to have a party and invite the entire neighborhood.  They began by writing up a description of Halloween, describing dressing up in costume, trick-or-treating door to door for handouts of candy, carving jack-o-lanterns and even bobbing for apples.  They gave a date and time and asked anyone interested in participating to hang a picture of a pumpkin (included in the invite) on their door. Then everyone was invited back to our friend’s house for a party.  

The event was a huge success. Neighbors living near one another for years came together for the first time ever. For the entire time that our friends lived in that community, people looked forward to ‘The American Halloween.’  Their children got the holiday they knew from home, only improved and the locals got a new tradition.  Halloween was a ‘treat’ for everyone involved.

So take the holiday, any holiday and make it yours and join with others to create new traditions that are uniquely yours.