Halloween 2013

Halloween is a tricky one for me (like what I did there?)

Brought up by a deeply spiritual Christian woman, I was never taken trick or treating.

We were allowed to have a small party to ourselves, dress up, apple bob, eat donuts from strings pinned up over a door way & we were even allowed to raid my mums spice rack a make 'potions' (at least I think we were, we certainly did it regardless).

Trick or treating was considered begging at best, theft using fear & intimidation at worst.

As I became an adult, Halloween still never really hit it off in my life. I don't watch horror movies because I'm a giant wuss, so all the macabre and scary stuff just doesn't have a place in my head.

However, now I have children.

There are things I've done every single year, I always carve a pumpkin. I carried on going to my Mum's house to bob for apples and eat donuts.
Over the past few years I've started to make sure I have a bowl of sweets for the neighbourhood kids when they come round, and I've started to build up a box of decorations, bought from the supermarket during regular food shops or bought in sales at the end of the season.
Each year has been a conscious effort to make more of the season and this year, thanks to Pinterest, we made decorations together and had a Halloween dinner the night before. 

This year we were invited to a party at a friends, after which we all went trick or treating together as a group. The kids were on strict instructions to only knock on the doors of decorated houses, and each time the door opened one of the parents would apologise for the amount of children present.

It's funny. We watch so many American TV shows & movies, where Halloween is huge, and it has changed here so much in the past few decades, but it still felt a little awkward to me. I don't know if, as a 'door opener' you're supposed to pretend to be scared by the children in their costumes or what, but it defiantly seems that us British types haven't got the whole thing just yet.

Sadly, because we were out all night, my bowl of sweeties went un-trick-or-treated. What a shame.

We went to bed that night feeling quite proud of our boys who only had a few of their treats (self discipline at 4 & 5, how unexpected), but when I got up in the morning I found two boys downstairs sat on the sofa next to two empty buckets and a lot of sweetie wrappers. Never mind.

Bean with his decorated biscuit at Un-School.

Ed decorating a biscuit at Un-School.

Ed making chocolate spiderwebs.

Bean eating a spiderweb.

My attempt at chocolate spiders.

My dodgy attempt at sausage Mummies, as seen here.

My entirely-made-up-on-the-spot zombie brains. I made it using filo pastry, with a layer of tomato puree and cheese, rolled up all wiggly, then sliced & placed in a baking tray all hap-hazard like & baked. Yummy cheesy goodness.

My creepy eyeball jelly did not go to plan.

Yummy meringue ghosts.