Halloween 2013

Wow! I can't believe this is already our third Halloween in Japan and that Rosie is about the same age that William was when we first arrived. How things change and time flies!

As I wrote about last year, Halloween is definitely not celebrated the same way in Japan as it is in North America, but we do have a few friends close by that help us make it special for our kids. Tonight we went off trick or treating with a few of our friends and their children. I actually like that we only have four stops that we can make. This means way less candy to ration out to the kids, way less temptation for me to "help" them eat their candy, and we are finished a back home in time for their 8 o'clock bed time.  Since the kids have never experienced the kind of large scale trick or treating that goes on back home, there is absolutely no disappointment.

I decided to take a few spooky shots with Rosie and William before the jack o'lantern became old and mushy. Poor Theo was at yochien, so he didn't get to join in on the photographic fun until he came home.

Rosie's costume was something I whipped up in 30 minutes with some pieces of felt, a bit of stuffing, and a hand towel.

In case you are confused about what she is supposed to be, she is baby maguro nigiri. Yummy!

The boys' costumes were much more traditional Halloween material: Batman™ and Superman™

and I was the Black Rabbit of Inle.

Off to get some candy!

At one point, I thought an old man was about to crash his bike because of the long, over the shoulder double take he was doing of Theo's costume. I can only imagine what he was thinking of this tiny little Batman, roaming the dark streets of Fukuyama.

Then back home to dump out the candy buckets and survey the stash.

Fun times and candy were had by all!

Halloween 2012

November has come and gone and I still have not posted our Halloween photos. I swear I have a valid reason for slacking off in my postings, but that will have to wait for another day. So without further ado, here is how we celebrated Halloween this year:

Arguably, Halloween is purely a marketing ploy no matter what country you live in, but in Japan it seems to be all consumerism and no activities to attempt to balance it out. Candy and snack companies wholeheartedly endorse Halloween in Japan.  All sorts of orange and black, spooky themed decorations and food wrappers can be found during the month of October, but actual festivities, like carving jack-o-lanterns, children dressing up, or trick or treating, have yet to be adopted. There is a month of chintzy consumer items available but the 31st goes by quiet and unremarked year after year. Except by us.

In mid-October while picking apples at a local farm, I spied some huge carving pumpkins. They were scattered around the orchard marking the rows. When it came time to pay for our apples, I enquired about how much it would cost to buy a pumpkin too. They were pretty amused that I would want one of the massive pumpkins and let me pick one out for free. Dustin and I  absolutely love carving jack-o-lanterns and of course had a lot of fun with this one.

True to tradition, Theo's costume was homemade and consisted of a painted box. This year however, he was a robot instead of a Rubik's cube. When the time came to trick or treat, William outright refused to wear the doomsday prophet signs that I made for him, so he ended up dressed as a young James Herriot.

Theo dressing in his robot costume

I am pretty sure that William wouldn't have pulled it off as well as this guy

This year we also had the addition of two little friends. Recently, we met a Japanese family that returned to Fukuyama from living in the U.S. for two years. There children were really bummed when they found out they would not be trick or treating this year, so we invited them along to our rounds of the few foreigners in our neighbourhood.

All in all, we visited 5 of our neighbours and the children soon had a brimming bag of treats. Everyone had a fun evening and once again Halloween was a success!