Happy Halloween!

We survived a major traditional American holiday without feeling homesick! Hooray!

The kids with Sister Wu, who started off the weekend all the way on Friday, telling the kids after we met her for lunch that they could chose whatever candy they wanted from the convenience store. You should have seen their faces! Unbeknown to them, I held them to two pieces each. She wanted them to buy more. I didn't want to find out HER limit! Anyway, they were in HEAVEN, and this act of kindness may be their most remembered of our time here.

Holidays are when it can really come home that we are NOT there. Up to this point, we have enjoyed two major Taiwanese holidays, but hadn't missed any of our own. Knowing Halloween could not just quietly pass by without the kids feeling betrayed, I knew a celebration was in order.

But what? How? I can hardly send them around the apartment building to trick-or-treat and expect happy results. Halloween IS known about here. Costumes are not impossible to find. But no one tricks, and no one has treats (beyond the fact that everyone DOES seem to have candy ready for my kids who seem completely ready to chow down on whatever they are handed).

Q (the guru to the right) and I contemplated trying to keep things hyper-local. We thought trick-or-treating in our building would be easier than going anywhere, and it would help us meet our neighbors. BUT, I don't write Chinese. I couldn't figure out how to organize when I couldn't make such an announcement to post in the elevators by myself. Nor could I read any such announcement if I asked someone to help me with it. And who could help, really. People are so busy, they truly seem to only have one hour or two of free, undesignated time every week.

I kept hoping I would hear about a Halloween party or plan on facebook or elsewhere on the internet I could just show up to. Finally, it dawned on me that while such activities may exist, the chances that they would be within a convenient distance and be appropriate for the ages of ALL my kids was next to nil. So on Monday, Oct 26, I decided if I built it, perhaps others would come.

On Tuesday, Oct 27, I met with the Relief Society President in our Tamsui ward and told her my thoughts on hosting a simple activity - we would play a few simple games and use the long hall in the church which opens into a dozen or more class rooms to trick-or-treat in. When I asked her what she thought of my plan, she said just what I needed to hear: "Whatever you want to do is perfect and anything you don't do, we don't get to enjoy. We'll just be happy to have a celebration." Her enthusiasm and willingness to open the building and help spread the word was the needed support and we put the wheels in motion.

The party was on Saturday night from about 7-9pm. In the end I think there were 5 families from the church who came, plus about 5 single adults. We told Sammi and Alan our plans and they invited their friends who had joined us on prior adventures, adding another 3 families. Q put the word out to a language exchange group on facebook and that brought another family. I told the homeschool groups, and that added 2 more families. And our neighbors with kids the ages of Kai and EV came too. Plus I think the missionaries had 2 investigators come. So, when it was all said and done there were probably about 20-25 kids and around 30 adults! It was perfect! Not so crazy it felt out of control, but not so small we felt spread too thin in the church's gym.

This shot was taken around 9pm, so it was after a handful of families had left.

Kai (Hero, "Black Man of Black Man Toothpaste)
 and EV (pirate - patch bought here for $1) with our neighbor,
Cherry, and her little cousin.

Kai downloaded Halloween songs onto his tablet and we played those on the gym's sound system for a cookie walk and for festive background music. I made 3 batches of cookies and they were a hit. Families who brought food to share (there were a few who did though food had not been a requirement) also put their food on the cookie table, so there were cookies for the winners, and more cookies for everyone as well as other sweet and savory goodies. We also played "Pin the Face on the Jack-o-lantern" - a variation on the tail on the donkey theme.

The single adults brought face paint and spent their time in the foyer getting Halloween themed face paintings. They mostly stayed separate from the kid-centric happenings, but I was thrilled they were there and found something to do that amused them. The other station was a crafting table. I spent about $6 on colored paper and did up a paper jack-o-lantern and witch to give folks an idea of what they could use the paper to do. However, one of the attendees was an origami whiz and took this section over instructing other adults on how to make birds, baskets, and other origami designs. Once again, I was just thrilled that folks seemed to find something that spoke to them.

Eloise, Sophia, and Sophia's friend in front of the face they created blindfolded.

Below, I grabbed video of the kids heading up the stairs so you can get a sense of what kids were wearing.
                                                                               

Eloise  (a cat - tail, ears, and bow-tie bought here for $5) 
trick-or-treating the missionaries' door. Their reaction to 
this activity was my favorite response.

At about 7:50 we sent the adults to the 3rd floor with candy - some I brought and passed out, and some others had brought to offer to the trick-or-treating cause. While the kids gave the adults a head-start, we sang a few Halloween songs. Then we hiked up 5 flights (the gym is below the basement) to trick or treat. This was pretty adorable, and I'm not sure who had more fun - the kids going door to door for candy, or the adults who had never had the opportunity to see so many kids faces light up as they got the candy.

This wrapped up around 8:30 and things wound down and the clean-up started around 9. We left at 9:30 and were saved by a ride home (we'd taken a taxi there) from Sammi and Alan. (I am SO glad we didn't have the 15 minute walk to the MRT and the 15 minute walk HOME from the MRT!)

So that was Saturday. On Sunday, we enjoyed our Scripture Hero Family Home Evening with the Tamsui ward. They have a ward pot-luck and FHE every first Sunday, so this seemed like great timing for our tradition. This was actually planned a few weeks ago when the Relief Society president visited me for the first time. We explained that everyone dresses up or acts out their favorite scripture hero and lets everyone else guess who it is. Only one other family with kids participated in this activity, but the other adults who came played along as well, and it seemed everyone had a great time. We brought with us a new friend, Abby, who we met in connection to trying to find a Chinese roommate when we go home to help our Chinese continue to progress. She seemed to have a great time and showed a lot of interest in the unfamiliar Book of Mormon stories she heard about that night.

Kai was Sampson, EV was Nephi (and did the best memorizing her clues in Chinese), and Eloise was Mary. As the last skit, our family also acted out Ammon cutting off the arms of the bad guys, so Arthur got to be a little bleating sheep. (I didn't take any pictures of this....)

This is Arthur explaining his design to one of our guests.

Finally, on Monday night, we invited the singles to our home for another Halloween tradition: carving pumpkins. We were only able to find one pumpkin big enough to take a knife to, and it was pretty small! But once again, our guests seemed delighted to learn all about the technique of angling the cuts for the top, scraping the inner walls to thin them for easier carving, opening holes to let more light through, carving off only the outer skin to expose inner whiteness for design interest, and turning the seeds into a snack. It seems every step was met with squeals of surprise and interest. And everyone was excited to try. So our guests designed and carved three faces into our tiny pumpkin. The kids, AFTER I explained about 4 times that we were letting our guests try because they had never done this before, and may not have the chance to again, were quite gracious about sharing their pumpkin.

Just like at home, when the carving was done, we put a small light in the pumpkin, turned off the lights, and recited the scripture in Matthew about being the light on the hill to all the world.

The final guest is the taker of this pic.

This pumpkin face was actually a slightly altered Eloise design.

So at long last on Monday night we had a jack-o-lantern to summon the Great Pumpkin with. After our guests left, the kids pulled out their trick-or-treating candy and sacrificed it to the Great Pumpkin. Low and behold, he DID come, even though our candle-light was a battery powered flash light. So this morning (Tuesday, Nov 3) they woke up to mechanical pencils for the big three, bo po mo fo (Chinese phonetic alphabet) magnetic flashcards for everyone, a bo po mo fo baby book for Arthur, and even a USB cord for Q.  (I'd like to say they were thrilled, but there was a bit of griping that the Great Pumpkin didn't manage to bring them anything MORE fun. I warned them that their complaints might teach the GP to not come back, so the ingratitude was short-lived.)

All in all, this may have been our longest Halloween weekend EVER! Sharing our traditions with new friends who were so excited to learn also may have made it the most fun Halloween yet!

PS - Arthur, whose costume didn't make it into the shots above, was Gong Nam Style for Halloween - "huop, huop!"