We carved up our pumpkins before Daddy had to go back to the U.S. for his trip. It's a good thing our trick-or-treat night came early here in Belgium, our pumpkins never would have made it to the actual holiday in our 60 degree warm autumn weather. They got moldy and smelly in our kitchen really fast!
Trick-or-treating in Belgium is very much a grassroots effort. While All Saints Day (Nov 1) is a recognized national holiday (being a catholic country with a national religion and all) all Hallow's Eve - the day of the dead is not. All of the Halloween aisles in the stores are R-rated. My kids don't need to see costumes that combine axes stuck in heads with a lot of fake blood. Any non-horror themed costume idea has to be imported from the United States (or what I've learned through the years) bought during Carnival week in February.
But the American families here are numerous, and organized. In one village, an American friend of mine organized her neighbors for a trick-or-treat night when her boys were young and she wanted them to experience the tradition. It grew and grew, and now her boys are too old to trick-or-treat, and the night in her neighborhood has grown so big that she had to hand it over to a local business to sponsor. Over the years that we've been here, more and more neighborhoods are organizing their own trick-or-treat nights. This year, I was by myself with three kids. So we took an easy route and went to the neighborhood across from the American school. I dropped my candy off at the school the week before (I told you the Americans here are organized!) And any house with a pumpkin sign last Thursday night was fair game.
In an attempt to make my single-mom-night-out easier, and be cool at the same time, we went to McDonald's for dinner before we trick-or-treated. There is only one McDonald's, and it just so happens to be very near to the American school (go figure). AJ was more than apprehensive about setting his vampired foot into a public establishment. I assured him that there was sure to be other American kids in costume having dinner before trick-or-treating. I was wrong. To my amazement, we were the only vampires in the place and the talk of the town. (Miss B looked awfully cute with her princess dress and vampire teeth.)
Trick-or-treating was a success. I could even relax a little, the kids were old enough this year to ring each doorbell by themselves, even the scary houses. After all, how can a princess be frightened when she has two tall vampires on either side of her? After each house, Miss B had to bring each piece of candy back individually to show me. She asked over and over, "Mommy, another one?!" and at one point, she turned and said "mommy, me weally, weally wike Halloween!" We do have a little work to do though, as it was revealed that the older boys didn't know what a tootsie roll was.
I came home with the same number of kids that I started with, which was my primary goal for the evening. There were a few seconds of panic when I couldn't find Monkey, thankfully, it wasn't dark yet. Monkey is still talking about the extra piece of candy he got when he trick-or-treated a house all by himself.
We were out for just over an hour, each kid got about 20 pieces of candy, they were home in bed at a decent time and they even fell asleep (despite the sugar rush). All in all, a fun night in Belgium.
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