Our Halloween 2017...With a New Movie!
I love this time of year.
Getting into the Back to School routine after the long summer break is always a bit of shock to the system. Our lazy, hazy, sunny days fade into nostalgic memories as we brace ourselves for the start of a new school year. So the buzz I feel when mid October comes around is a very welcome distraction from the daily regime of school runs, ECAs and homework. I feel the lure of Halloween shenanigans beckoning me with irresistible appeal, and, beyond that, the excitement of Mia’s birthday, on November 4th, and Ivy’s birthday on November 18th. At that point, of course, we land right in the giddy throes of Christmas planning, so we happily ride that wave for the rest of the year and sail right into January.
You may well think that, living in the Middle East, we’re a bit short on Halloween celebrations, but, in fact, the reverse is true. We may not have the overwhelming commercialism of store displays and tv ads, but the expat population here make sure that there are Halloween activities aplenty. On the night of Halloween, compounds all over Doha come alive with the glow of elaborate home decorations, and excited children in costume hurry from door to door, collecting huge bags of sweets and chocolate.
It’s become a tradition in our family to take an outing to the wholesale market to buy our Halloween pumpkins. The children love comparing the pumpkins for shape and colour, then deciding which lucky candidates will get to be taken home! Ivy and the twins always hitch a ride back to the car on the vegetable cart, pushed by a smiling market helper. One of the many good things about living here is that people, in general, embrace children and take joy in their happiness, which I find endlessly heartwarming.
So, on Monday morning, 30th October, we made our pumpkin pilgrimage and returned home with three of the best specimens we could find.
Ruby set to work gutting one, and Ivy and I set to work on the other.
Ruby went for a cannibal pumpkin design, which she pulled off to gory perfection, while Ivy and I decided to go for a pretty, circular patterned look. When George got home from work he helped us to drill the holes, which was a bit of a shock at first; bits of pumpkin flesh flew everywhere and our kitchen looked like the scene of a macabre pumpkin massacre! The results were satisfying, if a little less impactful than I’d hoped:
The third pumpkin will lie in wait to be consumed at a later date!
I combined the pumpkin flesh with a range of other autumn vegetables to make our traditional, hearty pumpkin soup, and served it with a couple of loaves of warm, crusty bread, which went down a treat with everyone!
Then, with satisfied bellies full of soup, we started to film our family Halloween movie. I provided links to our previous movies in this blog post a few days ago, and while I enjoyed reminiscing about how cute the children looked in their various roles, from pumpkins to witches, it did jolt me into realising that we were overdue for another premier, so I was eager to put a new script to test!
Mia and Ivy played the parts of sorcerer trick or treaters who put a curse on two girls, Ruby and Lyla. Oscar and Arlo were two ghosts who fulfilled the curse. We had so much fun making it, I couldn’t resist staying up into the early hours on Tuesday morning, finalising the editing to make sure that the children could enjoy the final product on the day of Halloween.
You can watch the movie here.
It was a sheer delight to see their faces light up when they saw it in the morning! It set the tone for a suitably spooky, fun-filled day and, soon after, Ruby and I set to work on our Halloween feast.
Ruby made a beautiful batch of vegan, gluten free cupcakes which were truly delicious and looked great on our Halloween cupcake stand:
Meanwhile, I created an orange buffet! We enjoyed peeled tangerines with celery stalks, made to look like mini pumpkins, roasted orange capsicums filled with a lentil and brown rice vegetable mix, hummus with carrot and celery sticks, and leftover pumpkin soup with strips of wholemeal pita. I was keen for the children to enjoy a healthy meal before filling up on their usual haul of trick or treat sweets!
After our meal, we finalised our costumes before heading out to a nearby residential compound to enjoy an evening of trick or treating. Ruby and Ivy were vampires, Lyla was a zombie schoolgirl, Mia a zombie police officer and the twins were zombie pirates.
Ruby and Lyla in particular have perfected the art of skin gore for their Halloween costumes, using a combination of flour, cocoa powder and vaseline. Following on from Ruby’s revolting success with her facial horrors last year, she practiced again a few days ago and created this stomach-churning eye gouge:
While Lyla came up with this hideous head wound:
I always feel terribly conflicted when I see the results of their efforts; part of me feels absolutely horrified to see the beautiful faces of my precious children seemingly disfigured in such grotesque ways, while another small part of me feels quite impressed with their creativity!
I always love watching my gang of six rush up to the doors of decorated homes, brushing their way through cobwebs and passing ghosts and tomb stones, to fill their bags full of tasty treats. It’s one of those childhood joys, infused with innocent awe and intrigue, that you hope will be remembered forever. The compound we’ve visited for previous Halloweens has had some fantastically spooktacular displays, from a real dracular springing up from a coffin, to smoke machines and eerie music. Some of the residents at the compound we went to last night had made particularly impressive efforts too, with huge, spooky light displays projected onto houses, electric ghosts flying past on elevated ropes, witches who had crashed into tree tops and buckets of green goo for the kids to delve their hands into and fish out the treats.
It was a brilliant evening which made me feel lucky to be part of a supportive community that goes to so much effort to create these marvellous experiences for the kids.
As luck would have it, school was meant to resume today after a three day half term, but it was cancelled due to electrical problems, which was just as well, because after all that exhausting trick or treating my satisfied lot were deep in slumber at their usual wake up time and are happy to have a low-key day today, steadily making their way through all their loot!
In the meantime, my mind’s gone straight to the weekend, when we’ll be celebrating Mia’s 12th birthday…there’s no rest for the wicked! :)