Hanna organized a Halloween party this year and invited a friend from school. Rather than trick-or-treating, we carved pumpkins, bobbed for apples and drank fresh apple cider from a nearby farm. Travis took the kids on their bikes to the farm to pick out their pumpkins and they also stopped at the farm stand for milk and apple cider. Our apartment was decorated with a colorful skeleton streamer from Gloria and handmade pumpkins, bats and owls taped to the windows. Hanna's friend Eriona had never carved a pumpkin or celebrated Halloween (her family is from Yugoslavia). It was fun to see Hanna speaking German with her friend, and it was clear that Eriona was pretty excited about the pumpkins and the bobbing for apples game.
The kids had talked about Halloween in their English classes at school and Hanna reported to us that they were starting to celebrate the trick-or-treating part in Switzerland. Sure enough, after dark we heard our doorbell ring and we opened it to see a group of kids all dressed up and saying "süsses oder saures". Hanna and Leif were so excited they happily passed out the candy they had received in the mail from Grandma. Our neighbor downstairs told us that if you do not have something süsses (sweet) to give them, they will play a trick on your by doing something to your door. The kids put their carved pumpkins on the stairwell to entice other trick-or-treaters and it worked like a charm so we had about 20 kids total. And in the typical Swiss fashion of friendliness when they heard our kids speaking English to each other the trick-or-treaters would say "thank you, thank you" rather than danke vilmal.
One of the great things about kids is when they remind you that things do not have to be super fancy or perfect to make it fun... Hanna told us it was the best Halloween ever and Leif and Elisabet quickly agreed.
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