bah humbug

Halloween is quite a disappointment here. As soon as October rolled around the grocery stores had already put out a good sized Christmas section and only 1 type of Halloween candy out. Bah humbug.

And no pumpkin patches for me this year either. The girls and I just had to choose 2 from 8 small pumpkins at the grocery stores. Bah humbug.

It wasn't until literally 3 days before Halloween did stores decorate with bats, spiders, and cobwebs and have more of a selection of Halloween sweets, none which were appealing to eat anyway. And sadly, there is no such thing as candy corn here. (Very, very select stores/store in Central London. And super pricey.)
And if the Halloween festivities increased a bit you better believe the Christmas festivities increased 10x more.

This had Marisa absolutely irritated that Christmas was going up at the same time as Halloween.

"They are crying wolf!",

was her response on the bus one day to the injustice of it all.

But we sure did make our situation into a better one though. Our Halloween weekend started out with Halloween festivities at Greenwich Market. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw every single seller dressed up and every booth decked out! Halloween music was playing loudly on speakers and there were plenty for the kids to do!

Right after our local market we went cookie decorating at our new NYC expat family's house. Meet the Blanchards. We love having them around.

On Saturday, we carved pumpkins as a family from our little store bought pumpkins.

Natalie was turned off by the slime and goo instantly but did choose what face she wanted on her pumpkin. Hello Kitty and Jack grace our window sill.

Lastly, Halloween night. I was determined to make it wonderful for Marisa's sake. I was told by one of my British friends that the reason why Halloween is not a huge holiday is because there is no sense of community here. Bah humbug neighbours! So we went to where all the Americans live. St. John's Wood!
We dragged Shauna and her kids with us and we had a great time!

It really felt like home in SJW. A little America. Everyone was so friendly and so open. An American lady in her car even pulled over on the side of the road while driving just to hand our kids candy and shouted, "Happy Halloween!" Oh, you should have seen me and Shauna's faces! The things we take for granted in the U.S. It was such a nice break to just relax and enjoy talking to complete strangers. A very much needed break from the cold British city life. Now to quickly find a way to make £15,000 a month to live there... ;)

Happy Halloween!