We have come to learn that there are three American holidays that are particularly painful to celebrate from abroad. This is mostly because the rest of the world goes about their lives as if it is just another ordinary day, while we, as expats, know it shouldn't be. You can probably guess the holidays: Fourth of July, Thanksgiving and yes, Halloween.
We've solved the dilemmas of Thanksgiving and Fourth of July. Fourth of July is easy, we just make sure we are on holiday (usually to the U.S.) for this one. Thanksgiving is the most painful, but we've solved it as well by celebrating with a big turkey dinner on the Sunday following, and we usually invite some friends that have never celebrated Thanksgiving before (some Belgian friends, or our British neighbors.) Thanksgiving Day, the kids have school but John usually has the day off. So we've created our own tradition which involves a lunch date and some major Christmas shopping.
Of the three, the expat community rallies the hardest for Halloween. While trick-or-treat night is never on Halloween (because everyone has that whole week of school as holiday for All Saints Day). We have our choice of two neighborhoods within which to trick-or-treat the week before. One is near the American school, the other is in a Flemish neighborhood not far from where we live. Of the two, we prefer the former, as the neighborhood is an American style one with (mostly) square blocks and the houses closer together. We can cover the neighborhood quickly - knocking on about fifteen doors within an hour or so. Yes, I said fifteen.
At the end of it all, A.J. held up his little ziplock sandwich bag of candy with a big grin on his face and said, "Look at how much I got!"
To which I laughed, and said, "Just wait until next year."
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