Halloween the British Way

As we are finding with most holidays here, Halloween was not as big of a celebration as it is in the U.S.  Apparently it is getting bigger here, but I was not impressed.  When October rolls around, I like to put out the Halloween decorations and start thinking about costumes for trick-or-treating.  When I started mentioning Halloween to other mums, some of them told me their children do not dress up or trick-or-treat.  When I looked in the stores, I couldn't get over the tiny amount of space given for Halloween costumes, decorations and candy.  I guess we just like to party in the U.S. because each holiday pretty much takes over the grocery stores and Target!  Not here.  It is much smaller and simpler, which is the British way according to us.  Part of the reason may be that they do not have the space to store such items.  Also, many people here do not spend their money on unessential things like holiday decorations.   

Halloween costumes here are very traditional.  They stick with scary things such as witches, skeletons, Dracula, etc.  There were not aisles of Disney princesses and Ninja Turtles.  

This is the Halloween section at our local market.

This is the Halloween section at the local superstore/grocery store.

You could be a skeleton with a cape or a skeleton with a tutu...interesting.

Yep, that was it!  A few bakeries in town had some Halloween cookies or cupcakes, but there were not many decorations around town.  I could not find Halloween cards to mail to family, so we made our own cards.  It actually saved us a lot of money keeping it simple.  

My kids decided they wanted to be Peter Pan and Wendy, and they wanted Cora to be Tinkerbell.  I was excited that they would all 3 coordinate, and I was ready for the challenge to make their costumes.  I got on Pinterest and found ideas for their costumes.  The biggest challenge for me was finding the materials I needed to make the costumes.  Boy did I ever miss having a Hobby Lobby down the street!  The few stores that sell fabric had very poor choices, so I had to settle with what I could find and make the best of it. 

Peter Pan's costume was made out of fleece.  The belt and sword were made out of felt. 

Wendy's dress was made out of a crushed velvet knit fabric.

I kept Tinkerbell pretty simple since I couldn't find the right fabrics.  She went right for the white puff balls on her feet.  Yes, I was sewing them back on just minutes before this picture.

Eric took Dylan and Amelia trick-or-treating.  He said there were actually quite a lot of children out trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.  We only had a few come to our house.  Our house sits back behind other houses, so many people did not come down our long driveway.  By long, I mean "regular length U.S. driveway".  They are used to a driveway being the length of one small vehicle.

The candy here is different too.  We did have some mini Twix bars.  We miss U.S. candy!

Dylan and Amelia had a goal of collecting ten pieces of candy each.  Thankfully they did just in time for the downpour of rain.  It is England after all.  They came back soaked, but excited about their ten treats.  That was it.  I worked hard on those costumes, and it was all over in those few short hours.  Oh, and no one else even saw their costumes since they were wearing raincoats with their hoods up.  I wish we would've had a Halloween party or parade for the kids to wear their costumes again.  Hopefully they will use them to play pretend. 

I missed going to Boo at the Zoo with our good friends.  I missed going on hayrides and having costume parties.  I missed going to a pumpkin patch.  Halloween felt different this year.  The important thing is that Dylan and Amelia enjoyed dressing up and had a great time.