It's Me, Sara Louise

{last year}

Let’s talk Halloween.

(It’s called Veille de la Toussaint here, doesn’t that sound incredibly romantic?)

Halloween is another one of those holidays that leaves expat me feeling blah.

France hasn’t fully jumped on the Halloween bandwagon yet. There are dashes of it here and there, but The Spirit of the Great Pumpkin definitely hasn’t swept anyone away yet. For example, trick-or-treating; they haven’t figured this one out at all and I don’t know why because it’s not like it’s difficult… on October 31st you let your little gremlins dress up as little goblins and you send them outside to go door to door begging for candy. C’est tout! It’s that simple.

But here, they have it all wrong. Like two years ago, when they knocked on my door on the 28th, scaring the bejeezus out of Fifty (he wasn’t prepared, if it had been the 31st, he would have been prepared). And then this year, Papa’s Wife told us that the trick-or-treaters would be popping around last Friday… last Friday… the 26th! What in the name of Sabrina the Teenage Witch is that all about?!

Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because nobody came a calling last Friday. Not one little pirate, princess or zombie. It’s all very sad. And it’s all so crazy because France is the absolute perfect country for Halloween since November 1st is a holiday here (La Toussaint or All Saints Day).  Can you imagine what kind of trouble we’d get into in the States on Halloween if we didn’t have school or work the next day?! Holy Moly it’d get quite messy I’m sure. So yeah, the French need to find their Hocus Pocus and jump on board.

As for me… today I’ll dress Fifty in his Halloween t-shirt, we’ll watch It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, and I’ll tell him all about Ichabod Crane and the legend of Sleep Hollow. And maybe, just maybe, some little French gremlins dressed as goblins might come a knocking.

bisou