I spent the morning working on the invitation for our upcoming Halloween Housewarming Party. Check it out:

Location and phone number blurred to frustrate would-be stalkers. Not that you’ll recognize me and the Snook in our super-duper top-secret costumes! (The pirate idea has fallen by the wayside.)

Can you believe I didn’t mention Halloween at all yesterday? Maybe that’s because it was a total non-event here. Seriously, I didn’t see a single person in costume. The Snook claims he saw some skanky chick in fairy wings down by the train station, but she probably dresses like that every day. (We get a lot of freaks in Newtown.) We celebrated by getting dressed up and going out for a nice Italian dinner around the corner at “Da Stefano’s”. You Days of Our Lives fans will appreciate my amusement. It was nice.

Check out these Halloween cookies my sister made! Scary bones and witches’ fingers. Maybe if we all ask very nicely, she’ll tell us how she did it…

New Poll: How will you be celebrating Halloween this year? I’m feeling rather sad since it’s not really that big of a deal in Australia. They don’t even trick-or-treat! Apparently adults might have Halloween parties, but it’s pretty strictly limited to “scary” costumes (which takes a lot of the fun out of it, I think). I haven’t seen a *single* Halloween-themed item in the grocery store. No candy, no decorations, no pumpkins even! I might have to carve a squash just to satisfy my festive urge.

We had trick-or-treaters! Tiny British trick-or-treaters! I couldn’t believe it. We didn’t have them last year; they just appeared. Nick and Alex (the English guys) were supremely annoyed at the fact that London parents seem to be trying to imitate and kick-start this very American pasttime. I was just annoyed at the fact that they don’t know any of the “Trick-or-Treating Etiquette” that us Yanks know by heart. For example, in the U.S. kids know to only go to houses that are decorated and/or have their front porch lights on. Right? Well, since nobody decorates here parents were seriously just taking their kids around the neighborhood knocking on EVERY DOOR. Luckily when they hit us my sister happened to be working her way through the bag of Meijer bulk Halloween candy Mom sent us, so I was able to hand out a couple chocolate balls to each kid. But I can’t imagine that they found more than a couple houses willing and able to give them something. Also, the kids had TINY bags. Really, really small. Of course, since nobody was prepared for them, they didn’t really need big ones, but that’s beside the point. These kids need to learn the joys of carrying a pillowcase. And lastly, some idiot brought his kids to the door at, like, 9:30. By then all our candy was gone, and I’d thrown out my jack-o-lantern (since it was getting moldy anyway). So I had to tell the kids that I didn’t have anything for them. I just glared at the father. What kind of jerk drags them around to random houses that late? Seriously, I should go on TV and teach these Brits how it’s done.

“Hey Mom! I wanna be a Scratch ‘N’ Sniff Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup this year!”

My sister and I were just reminiscing about those store bought Halloween costumes that just consisted of a mask and plastic gown. We could never convince Mom to buy them for us and always ended up making our costumes. I was a “Punk Rocker” for, like, six years in a row. (I used to braid my hair and then paint each of the strands a different color. I thought I was so cool.) Anyway, Kim found an online archive of those cheesy store costumes. Some of these are just unbelievable. Asteroids the Atari game? Chachi from “Happy Days”? Flipper the dolphin? A frickin’ Rubik’s Cube??

Wow. Anon goes Halloween. And I am suddenly craving pumpkin pie.

New Poll: Okay, it’s late Halloween night. You’ve finally wiggled out of your costume and you dump your bag of booty out on the bed. Carefully, you begin to separate everything out into prioritized piles. Yeah, yeah, I know you’re all about the mini Hershey bars and Reese’s peanut butter cups. But what’s the last thing you eat? What’s in the “trade” pile that you try to off-load on your brother and sister? What really sucks? Enquiring minds want to know.

Halloween in Indiana
My dad sent me this picture and it just cracks me up. I’m not actually sure it was taken in Indiana, but it sure looks like it. Man, that makes me homesick. We have gray skies in London too, but not nice crisp autumn ones like this. And check out that Hoosier humor! You KNOW you’d wanna hit this house if you were trick-or-treating. 🙂

(For those wondering, they don’t really do Halloween over here. It’s mostly a grown-up holiday, and nobody decorates or anything. Our house is the only one I’ve seen with a jack-o-lantern. Bonfire Night is coming up in a week or so though, so that’s when the young ‘uns get to have their fun with fireworks and candy and such.)

Snookums and I were checking out the baby pumpkins at the Hammersmith market today. So naturally my thoughts turn to Halloween and I look to the Net for inspiration. My first impulse was to do one of these cool emoticon jack-o-lanterns. I mean, it’s definitely appropriate for our Geek House. But then I saw these Martha Stewart monogrammed pumpkins and now I’m torn. Of course, if I did spend three hours making a translucent harlequin squash, somebody would only step on it in a drunken haze and I’d be all upset. So maybe I should just stick with the original idea.