Australian Halloween

It appears that things have moved on some from my last post about Halloween in Australia, or maybe we’re just more in the loop of what’s happening with the primary-school social scene. As it turns out, there is trick-or-treating in Canberra, and on Wednesday evening we headed out to see what it was like. And, aside from the accents and the spring flowers everywhere, it wasn’t that much different than last year in Missouri; even the weather was only a few degrees warmer than the mild autumn weather we experienced on both of our Midwestern Halloweens.

We joined forces with a group of Miss B’s Year 2 classmates and their parents, and spent an hour or more visiting houses receptive to doorbell ringers. Adoption of the trick-or-treating tradition isn’t universal, and at least in our neighborhood, is concentrated among families with school-age children. So someone in the community had the good idea to make and distribute signs for people to put up, advertising houses as “trick-or-treat friendly” - and ensuring that those who weren’t participating wouldn’t be bothered.

It wasn’t the extravaganza that we experienced in Missouri, but it was sufficient to fulfill Miss B’s Halloween hopes – and mine, since I retain enough fond memories of my own childhood Halloweens to want her to experience more than just the two years’ worth she got living in the US. And by celebrating it in Australia, as a bonus she doesn’t have to worry about her parents raiding her candy stash. I don’t recognize anything in there – what is a CherryRipe, anyway?

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