Halloween

This weekend I celebrated my first Halloween. Halloween is a huge tradition in America and often quoted by my friends as their favorite holiday of the year. Hence, my household decided to throw a party. A big one. We carved jack-o-lanterns, baked pumpkin bread, decorated the house with spiders and glow-in-the-dark cobwebs and transformed our gorgeous old Berkleyan Hills manor into a monster mansion with a DJ, dance-floor and copious amounts of food and drink.  Everyone came in costume; from giant bananas to mermaids to Vikings to Chilean miners subsequent to their rescue from the Copiapo. Diogenes and I went as two American classics, Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe. There were in excess of 100 people at the party at one time – it surely made for a ‘sweaty sardine’ environment, as one guest was heard saying. The party raged on until the sun came up in the morning and only the stragglers were left keep the dance floor alive. It was one of the biggest and best parties I’ve been to (not to toot my own horn) and everyone had an exceptionally amazing time! Cleaning up the next day wasn’t too painful given there were 7 other housemates to help, and by lunchtime you couldn’t even tell there was a party the night before. Hundreds and thousands of little kids and young teenagers raged the streets in costumes knocking on doors for candy. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any kids come to our house (we even bought candy for them!). I think it was because we are so far up the hill that no one could be bothered walking up here for candy… ha, need I make social commentary on that last sentence? The history and the development of the Halloween holiday is an interesting one but I will leave Wikipedia to fill you in on that one. There wasn’t a single house without a pumpkin out the front for weeks prior to Halloween and the holiday is surely one I’ll never forget!