Anglo-American Halloween Celebration

As I have mentioned before, Halloween is not as much of an event in the UK as it is in the US, although traditions we know as Americans, such as trick-or-treating, are increasing here in England. We probably had only about a dozen trick or treaters in our neighborhood, and I thought that was quite light, given that we are in a pretty family-friendly area.

Since this was Crosby's first Halloween, I thought it would be nice to have a little party with her British baby friends and their parents so we could celebrate the holiday in more of an American style!

Crosby trying out her first Halloween costume, a cute little duckie!

The Saturday before Halloween, we hosted about 15 people at the house for an early Halloween pizza dinner. Since our guests were all British friends, I decided it would be fun to introduce them to Chicago deep dish pizza and American Halloween candy, both of which none of them had ever consumed before.

I brought back a few decorations from the US on my last trip there and decorated the house with some festive things.

I was a busy baker before the party, making both chocolate "ghost" cupcakes and vanilla "jack-o-latern" cupcakes.

The table was set with the food spread including: caramel peanut apple dip, hummus & veggies, cheese & crackers, deep dish Chicago pizzas, parmesan pizza bites for the babies, frosted sugar cookies, and chocolate & vanilla cupcakes - everything homemade from scratch of course! The center of the table had lots of American candy for our guests to enjoy and take home in their goodie bags : tootsie rolls, nerds, sweet tarts, Ghost tootsie roll pops, reeses pieces, candy corn, marshmallow pumpkins, laffy taffy, and sixlets.

The sausage, veggie, and sausage & mushroom deep dish Chicago-style pizzas. They were a hit with the guests!

We tried to capture a photo of all of the babies in costume in one sitting on the couch. It was nearly impossible to do! For some reason, Crosby was not a happy camper during this photo shoot and as soon as she started crying, the others followed suit.

Then on Sunday, we attended a Halloween party, this time with the American Club in our area. Although Crosby was probably a bit too young for the activities at this event, it was nice to celebrate the occasion with our American friends.

Crosby at the party in her fancy Halloween bib I made her.

Scott has fun swinging the little duckie around upside down!

At the party, taking a photo in the decorated area.

Trying out Mom's silly Halloween sunglasses for size.

The British Pumpkin Patch

In the US, I grew up going to huge pumpkin patches every year - complete with their corn mazes, spooky scarecrows, hay rides, festive foods, and more. In preschool and grade school I am sure there were school trips to the pumpkin patches every fall. In the US, a trip to the pumpkin patch is one that every family seems to make in the September/ October time frame. I have plenty of photos through the years of our trips to the pumpkin patch, where my sister & I would each pick out our pumpkins that we would carve for Halloween. It is fun, festive, and part of the build-up that goes into celebrating Halloween in the US.

I may have touched on this subject to some degree in the past but the pumpkin patch is yet another example of how commercialized the Halloween Holiday is in the US versus in the UK where it is not as elaborate in scope (Although admittedly growing in popularity each year but the looks of the store shelves...)

Now that we have a little girl to start such family traditions with, it seemed only fitting that we celebrate the fall season with a trip to the local pumpkin patch, so last weekend I searched for a local pumpkin patch in our area and luckily we found one within about 20 minutes of a drive.

The pumpkin patch was located on farm in the middle of the countryside and they had one large pumpkin balloon flying in the air for people to be able to find them. It only took us about 5 minutes to walk around the entire pumpkin selection area of this farm, but it was really a cute little find - just quite different than the massive pumpkin farm industry in America!

The farm owners had some "spooky" and festive decor set up on their property.

Inside the tent of pumpkins. Much different to the US, there was only one small tent filled with pumpkins (although a nice selection of them!).

Crosby took in the view of the pumpkins from Dad's shoulders.

There was a cute old fashioned large scale there to weigh the pumpkins, so we decided to weigh our little pumpkin to see how she compared!

We seated Crosby next to a few of the pumpkins for a while. She happily sat there and just watched the other people visiting the pumpkin farm walk around. She most definitely enjoys being out watching people.

Is that a pumpkin head or Scott??!?!?

After we selected a few pumpkins, we piled the pumpkins and Crosby into the little wagon the farm had on site.

Scott pulled the pumpkins and Crosby back to our car. It was a short little visit but it seemed festive and we were glad to support a local farmer in our purchase of pumpkins, rather than the grocery store.

Happy Halloween

We were at our home in England this year for Halloween, the first time we have been at home for the evening to welcomed trick-or-treaters here. In honor of being around, we (well really Scott) carved a pumpkin to put in our front entryway so neighborhood kids knew they could come to our door. We had about a dozen kids in total - no where near the amount we ever had at our homes in the US growing up, but it is not as popular of a holiday over here as it is in America. (although it is growing in popularity I understand here)

Scott as a jack-o-latern.

Our jack-o-latern lights up our entryway area, awaiting trick or treaters!

Lots of treats and a few tricks....

Yesterday we celebrated Halloween in a more American fashion than British fashion....

The British do not embrace Halloween like the Americans do. Trick-or-Treating has begun over here really in more recent years, and even at that, it is only a handful of children who find their way around the neighborhoods for candy. The costume selection in the stores is pretty dismal and most costumes here tend to focus around witches, cats, or vampires. The aisles and aisles of candy at the local Target stores do not exist over here, although I understand the selection has grown again in more recent years.

We attended a Halloween party last night at another American family's house, so we did celebrate with a costume party, haunted house (aka a haunted garage), and even Halloween games for the kiddos! 

First the treats started on Friday when we received a wonderfully delicious sugar filled box from my mom in the mail! It was a GREAT surprise and American candy is always a welcome "evil" in our house, most especially since we cannot buy any of these treats over here! Thanks mom for spending the crazy amount of money to ship a box full of candy to us...

More treats for the party we attended on Saturday...I baked my grandmother's "smiley face cookies" and turned them into little jack-o-latern cookies. 

Popeye (aka Scott) downing his can of spinach before we headed out to our Halloween party. Sadly, we forgot to have Popeye take a photo of Olive Oyl so I cannot share my costume with you from last night...

At the party, a bit of the British traditions were followed, as the kids participated in a donut eating contest. The donuts were tied on a string and then the strings was tied onto a pole - the kids stood below and had to eat the donuts off of the string as fast as they could without using their hands! 

Popeye supervised and aided in the crazy donut eating contest....

Hope you had a Happy Halloween too! 

Halloween Candy...a few days late

Halloween is not as big of a deal in England as it is in the US.  We were actually back in Chicago for Halloween this year, as Scott was in a wedding on November 1st. Before we left for our trip back to the US, I did buy two bags of candy since I seemed to be craving Halloween candy just due to the time of year.

First, the selection of candy in England is not as vast as it is in the US. Choices of the "fun size" candy bars came in 3 varieties at our local grocery - Milky Way, Mars, and Twix. So, I purchased two bags (it was a 2 for one special price): Milky Way and Mars.

 Here is the confusing part - The Milky Way bars are actually what we know in the US as 3 Musketeers....

And MARS bars, are actually what we know as Milky Way Bars......

I just wonder which country has it right? And why can't the candy companies keep the candy bar names consistent throughout the world????