It feels so strange to celebrate Halloween when it is 80 degrees and sunny. And I definitely felt nostalgic about missing trick-or-treating on High Street in Ipswich, attending the party at the town fire-station, and cheering for all of the creative costumes at Brookwood’s lower school parade. I stalked Facebook for updates, ‘liking’ everyone’s quintessential New England posts.
This year, we invited three families from our school to join us in our neighborhood. The husbands and their kids came over as their wives had headed to the beach for the long weekend. We ate Little Caesars’ pizza, and then I pressed Max and Mia to ask the neighborhood kids (again) what time trick or treating started. They said 5:30, but I was sort of nervous that they had it wrong when no one came to the door of the first two houses. However, the kids ran on, and eventually found houses expecting trick or treaters. Kids started pouring into our house too, though I could not help but notice that they wearing pretty lame costumes. Some kids did not dress up at all but were still trick-or-treating. One of our neighbors sort of laughed at our friend’s use of a pillowcase to collect candy. When I asked the neighbors how to say, “Happy Halloween!” in Spanish, there was a five minute conversation about the translation. Because the holiday is relatively new and adult neighbors did not have trick or treating when they were children, it is sort of odd to see the majority of decorations inspired by the Mexican Day of the Dead holiday. It feels like more of the set of the movie Coco than a traditional Halloween.
As we ventured outside of our plaza, our neighbor did warn me to be careful about opening our house to “the other side”. When I pressed her, she sort of explained that given the social unrest to be cautious about having outsiders see the inside of our homes. Houses in Lo Barnechea are either in a cul-de-sac behind a locked gate, or the exposed houses are on the street protected by high walls, large ADT signs, barbed wire, and spiky fences. It was highly unusual to have people open those gates to strangers. One house gave us candy through the fence, rather than unlocking the door. One of the kids, even articulated how weird it felt to be knocking on doors for candy.
The kids had an amazing time. I thought that the candy selection here was pretty lousy, but nobody but me seemed to miss real candy bars like Almond Joys. I kept thinking if I had brought ten bags of chocolate bars from the States, our house would have been the biggest hit in the neighborhood. The decorations were pretty modest. It was difficult to find a pumpkin to carve, though I had heard that Jumbo had them. When we went last weekend, they were already sold out. At 7:00 pm, just like every other night in our neighborhood, the kids convened in the plaza to play soccer, cárceles (jail), and jump on the trampoline. And just like last year, I let the kids eat all of the candy that they wanted. Then I offered to buy the rest, which they excitedly sorted and negotiated. We watched the Great Pumpkin (Charlie Brown) and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” music video. Rich and I high-fived each other and called the night a success. Truco or trato para todos!
Living in Chile 