"Queremos Halloween"

I survived Halloween 2006. I swear we get more Halloween living out of the States than we would if we lived in the States, but maybe I'm wrong. The last time we were living in the States for Halloween was when Margarita (8 years old) was 2.

From my childhood, I remember having a little party at school the day of Halloween and then trick-or-treating that evening. Here, we had 3 different Halloween parties (outside of school), two rounds of trick-or-treating, one round of trunk-or-treating, and of course the school parties. By the end of last night I was exhausted.

So, as sick as I am of all things Halloween, I had to do a post on it because No Cool Story wanted a report on Halloween in Mexico. Mexico doesn't "officially" celebrate Halloween, but Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), and Dia de los Niños Muertos (Day of the Dead Children. Sounds a little morbid, don't you think?). I like these holidays; families remember those that have gone on before them and leave out offerings of things they liked (like food and such) in a kind of shrine presentation. Here is a picture of the "ofrendas" in our building:



But, I have to report that Halloween is alive and well here in Big City. The stores are filled with pumpkins, ghosts, spiders and lots of snack-sized candies. All of these decorations were purchased here in Big City:

My cool ceramic pumpkins and Halloween lights:

A fine variety of gourds (and some more ceramic pumpkins):



Spider webs and Halloween garland:


So, I was thinking, well, maybe just the commercialization of Halloween has struck our neighbors to the South, but then last night as we were out and about driving I was shocked to see TONS of little Mexicans (and some much older ones) dressed up as little devils and ghosts walking through the streets with a loot bag in their hands. So, it's not just the foreigners that are doing the Halloween thing.

Here's a picture of some authentic Mexican trick-or-treaters. It's not that great, but I was driving at the time and I almost got in a crash taking this pic, so I didn't think I had better push my luck trying to get something better:

They don't say "Trick-or-Treat" though. They either just say "Halloween!" or "Queremos Halloween!" (We want/love Halloween! )

Here are my little goblins at our ward party:



And some of the crappy candy we got trick-or-treating (most all of it is "enchilado" or chilied-up. Blaahhhh!) The maid is going to go home with a lot of candy this week. Hopefully that will keep her off of my ice cream:



After we got done trick-or-treating last night, Margarita, distraught with the ratio of American to Mexican candy she received asked,

"Why can't we just be normal Americans?"

I said, "We are normal Americans."

To which she replied, "Then why can't we just live in our country? My whole bag would be filled with good candy if we lived there!"

Then I told her about the mean Americans who who hand out raisins.

Hope everyone had a safe, fun night!