Spirit Week

Halloween is my favorite holiday. In the states we'd always mark the beginning of fall by spooking our neighbors. The kids would each take turns ringing a neighbors doorbell after dark and leaving treats. And, leaving them to guess who spooked them. We'd also host a big annual Halloween that often ended in a candy corn, toilet paper, slime dripped mess in the yard. And of course, there's the grand finale. Going trick or treating with friends. But, we didn't pack any of our extensive Halloween decoration or costumes. So, our Halloween stuff sits in storage and is probably infested with cockroaches. (The fact that roaches would only enhance the creepiness of my Halloween stuff has not eluded me...)



After all, we were packing to move to an Islamic country that doesn't celebrate the Pagan-Christian derived holiday. So why would I need it? Except that my kids go to an American school and there is a celebration at the Embassy and there is even trick or treating among the expats here. And Genius Mc Genius (that would be me) has tons of great stuff that I can't do anything with. Doooooooohhh! On top of that, there's no where to get stuff here like costume shops or crafty Michael's stores. So, there's nothing to get. You just have to improvise. I ordered the kids costumes on-line. Well, not for Sky. He didn't want one. I just hoped the other 3 would make it before Halloween in some kind of Great Pumpkin miracle or something.



Here is our Halloween Spirit Week....

MONDAY:

* Craig leaves for a week in Sierra Leone.
* I buy candy at the store for parties later in the week.
* I score construction paper and tape at the store.
* Jade and Ember are so ridiculously excited about paper and tape!
* They use it all to make paper chains and put them up around the house.
* The boys are reserving their Halloween spirit for candy, not decorating.

TUESDAY:

* It's middle school picture day and the only day of the year I care what they wear.
* I have seen River wear the same Star Wars shirt everyday of the year.
* And I dont want a photo of him on the wall in in too.
* After a 20 minute battle River reluctantly complies.
* And strangely he's not in his Halloween costume which amazingly has arrived in time!
* Of course, it rains and picture day is cancelled.
* With the paper and tape exhausted the girls print a hundred spiders off the computer and continue to decorate.

WEDNESDAY:

* Panicking I don't have enough, I double up on candy supplies from the store.
* Jade will not stop singing this super annoying Halloween song she learned in school.
* She downloads it from the computer.
* Then she teaches it to Ember, so it's a duet now. And that's doubly annoying.
* Sky decides he does have the Halloween spirit and wants to dress up as a German tourist.

THURSDAY:

* Sky checks with the German kid in his class to make sure his costume isn't offensive.
* Cause he's culturally sensitive like that...
* But he's also easily embarrassed and tells me to dress up for his band concert tonight.
* So no ripped jeans with a t-shirt that might expose a slight glimpse of my midriff should a I do a sudden back bend or some other ridiculous yoga pose at his concert. Because that would be embarrassing...

FRIDAY:

* When I show up at school for the Halloween assembly, Ember looks like Elvira.
* Another student shared her bright red lipstick with her and a friend.
* We go to the haunted house at the school geared for elementary kids.
* I have 2 crying kids cause it's way too scary, so I give an actor a lecture right in the haunted house.
* It goes without saying that Sky's embarrassed about that right?
TGIF BONUS: Thankfully they did not play the most annoying Halloween song ever titled, It's Almost Halloween. That would have sent me over the edge. (Warning: If you should choose to search it on the internet, please know that once it gets in your head, you can't get it out. And it's really quite awful, which is probably why you haven't heard of it before.)



SATURDAY:

* The kids are so stoked it's Halloween!
* Ok, it's not actually Halloween, but it's the day we're celebrating Halloween at the Embassy.
* And no one has even ruined their costume yet.
* That occurred 2 minutes after this picture was taken...



And I had come up with a last minute costume idea. So I dressed as...



No, not Sgt. Pepper.
Not Gaddafi either.
A green beret?
No.
What color is the beret? Yes, it's a raspberry beret. You know the kind you find at a second-hand store...
So when the kids asked what I was, I told them I'm the chick in the raspberry beret (insert sound of crickets here). Then I played them the song. And then I danced and sang to it too. And of course, Sky was so embarrassed...

After the festival at the embassy he headed to the beach. There are a group of expats who live out there who orchestrated a trick or treating route. And if you thought it was scary to take your kid out in America on Halloween night. Then don't try taking a whole huge group of kids through a Moroccan neighborhood that doesn't have sidewalks and the kids have to walk in the road with cars whizzing down them exceeding the speed limit and no one even knows to watch out for kids cause it's Halloween.



It was a fun week. But I was so thankful when it was over too and we were all home safely and the kids were tucked in bed. Then the night ended in some spirits. Luckily, they were in my wine glass.