It's that month again. The month where I tend to forget that in my home country, Halloween festivities are everywhere and I'd be carving pumpkins like mad!

Alas, it's quiet on the homefront and I'm a bit bummed that I'll most likely miss:

- Clever homemade (& controversial) costumes
- Cleverly themed goodies (eyeball punch, melon brain balls, etc.)
- Children knocking on my door (I REALLY miss this )
- Rows & rows of carved pumpkins (I can barely get myself to do ONE!)
- Dancing all night to tunes like Monster Mash
- And of course, candy-binging that will last me the whole year

What do you or your kids miss most about Halloween?

I miss seeing the kids all dressed up. When I was older but my siblings were still young enough to trick-or-treat, I'd sometimes take them or sometimes (if our folks were working) would be the one doing door duty.

I miss the decorations everywhere.

As an adult, I miss the parties we had, even if we didn't dress up, often we decorated and had themed treats. I really wish I could remember what we used along with canned (peeled, obviously) litchi to make pretty gruesome looking eyeballs.

(Edit: this page shows using blueberries with the litchi for eyeballs, maybe we used those, maybe we used marischino cherries or green grapes... some of each probably would be fun though)

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The Joys of Opticianry

It is our first Halloween since our move. My older kids will miss their favorite Halloween activity: designing the costume that best served the purpose of allowing them to sit in a chair on our dimly-lit front porch, motionless, with a bowl of candy perched on their lap. As kids approached and started to reach toward the bowl to take the candy, clearly thinking that the costume was "empty," the dressed-up kid would suddenly stand to his feet and scare the bejesus out of the trick-or-treater! My other kid would watch the whole thing take place and together they would laugh and laugh! The older the kids to be scared were, the more gratifying!

My youngest will miss choosing a costume and gallivanting around the neighborhood to collect candy and then sorting it once he got home (it is always important to inventory the goodies once you are home and note, for future reference, which neighbors gave you more than one fun-size chocolate bar, which gave only a piece of bad bubblegum , and especially which neighbors gave a toothbrush, ughhh ).

I will miss carving pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns with them, but I will not miss the moldy mess that the jack-o-lantern would morph into during particularly warm years!

It was such a great way to bring the community together and meet neighbors eh? I think not seeing decorations is really adding to my blase attitude about pumpkin carving.

Toothbrush yikes!! I recall one of our neighbor's kids hating chocolate so we were invited to feast!

I also really miss Halloween! I have soooo many great memories of it from my own childhood, and it breaks my heart to know that my child will probably never really get to experience it (here).

A few things that I really miss about it:

- Visiting "haunted houses"
- The sound of leaves crunching under my feet while trick-or-treating
- Seeing all the costumes (especially the really unique ones. I still remember when a kid in my 3rd grade came dressed up as a fried egg! )

And above all... just all the smiles on the kids' faces and the excitement in the air.

What I don't understand is why Coop has a small Halloween section, including a few costumes. Is it that Halloween actually IS celebrated in some parts of CH, or is that section in Coop just a teaser?

Ah yes....haunted houses!! And crying children

Maybe only the expats like us are buying from the section in Coop As I read, it started to get popular here about 10 years ago and is now on the wane. Switzerland is apparently too overloaded with festivals!!

Naw, Coop is trying to make money out of homesick Americans / teenagers and young adults that are going to special Halloween nights out, which also make money. It's all about the cash, I'm afraid. As is the cost of cleaning up after some misguided teenagers who think that Trick or Treat means "trick anyway and damage other people's property".

You could have your own halloween thing in your street if you know a few neighbours, gives you the opportunity to show others your traditions in a fun way. Just plan well in advance, you're probably a bit late for this year.

Our "winter festival thing" is the Räbeliechtliumzug, your children should have been informed about this by now. Definitely a community thing, without the going to each other's houses part.

I used to hate Hallowe'en in the UK. Little scrotes ringing on your doorbell for a week before and after and trashing your garden or car if you didn't give them money ("sod the sweets, missus, we want 10 quid").

I'm glad it's not so popular here and especially glad the kids don't ring on your bell.

we've celebrated halloween since we first came here three years ago. obviously it's just not the same thing, but each year it gets more fun and it's really important to keep the tradition alive for us. if you have kids and they want to trick or treat, most people will give cookies or coins or what ever they have because they know about the holiday. in lausanne, la maisonette usually has something going on for halloween- a special dinner and trick or treating. we've always had a party for halloween, first the kids with games and fun, then the adult's party. i've found that our friends are really happy to come and celebrate halloween- it's different for them and alot of fun.

enjoy!

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'there isn't enough of anything as long as we live.
but at intervals a sweetness appears and, given a chance prevails'

Well, a suggestion I have that may help with the missing it feeling is to get (yourselves, your kids, or all of the above ) dressed up and come on over to Basel for Herbstmesse (Autumn festival) on Halloween.

While there won't really be many others dressed up, there definitely is a lively carnival atmosphere going on so you shouldn't feel so out of place. Also, if you're without kidlets, some of the pubs (English / Irish mostly) have Halloween parties that night, with discounts / free first drink or something to folks who are in costume.

I miss walking through the neighborhood taking the kids all dressed up in their costumes. All the other kids dressed up as well, ringing the door bells, and a friendly face pops out the door, and the kids say "trick or treat", and out pops a huge container of assorted candies to choose from.

I miss the local grocery store having a Halloween party, with a haunted house made up in a trailer truck, and the scared screaming kids. They also had games, and the kids won prizes if they threw a ring around a bottle, and stuff like that.Truly a lot of fun.

Halloween has been a hot topic on EF for years

Sheesh, what a totally sucky experience! Fortunately, my experiences have at most been positive (except for the time I dodged bullets) but yeah, Halloween is the time for a bunch of jerks to have an excuse to be destructive. In San Francisco, Halloween in the gay neighborhood used to be THE THING to do until the "bridge & tunnel" gangs came in and started using it as a violent battleground to shoot people (hence my dodging bullets)

Some people Get really creative for Halloween!

Like Sandgrounder said though, kids who have not had that tradition for years and years seem to mistake it as an excuse to misbehave. So I prefer there not to be a general Halloween here...

We throw a halloween party for the kids that come to our playgroup -- a chance to just have F-U-N!! The kids from last year have already been asking about it for a couple weeks now! They love dressing up.

Halloween is my favorite time of year and I'd take my daughter home for the holiday if the school would allow for keeping her one week beyond the autumn holiday for a bit of T&T.

I miss...

Going up to Salem for the carnival/witchy haunted houses and such.
Apple picking this time of year.
I miss the folks down the street with the art student son who really went all out in decorating the house with awesome pumpkins and such
I miss carving pumpkins with the neighbors kids who always used to get so excited when I'd pull out my dremel and carving kit. The kids lost interest long before I'd finish, but were always amusingly awed when I was done.
I miss the fun of trying to pick out the 'right' candy so as not to be the equivalent of the house that gives out toothbrushes.
Miss making my popular pumpkin whoopee pies for the kids.
Miss having my husband dress in his full Italian broadsword armor and scrare the crap out of the trick or treaters....and then get the 'darth vader' questions from the older kids
Miss the mormon family down the street who always had a big open door party with fresh donuts on halloween night.
Miss the general fun, levity, joy that is the harvest.

I don't miss pumpkin pie. That stuff just sucks; no taste, that's why they plaster it with cinnamon. They should drop them on the Taliban, it would bring them to the negotiating table quicker than military hardware.

Wrong holiday, that's Thanksgiving! Unless, of course, you had some old fart drop a pumpkin pie in your bag on Halloween. That must have been a bit messy...

(and good pumpkin pies use nutmeg, not cinnamon....)