All Things Halloween

October is a very exciting month. As we all know, one of the best holidays lands in October. I. LOVE. Halloween. I love parties; I love fun decorations and foods; I love dressing up. Did I mention I LOVE dressing up?? Celebrating Halloween for the entire month, rather than just one day, is a must, must, must!

Given the fact that not many Halloween festivities exist here, we have to come up with some of our own.

For starters, as soon as it was October, decorations went up. In fact, it actually took some will-power to wait that long. I can't promise that same power will win when it comes to Christmas decorations. They may be going up in a short couple weeks.

Funny story: I put this Halloween caution tape up on our door, realizing it would be amusing if someone actually thought it meant something--you know, since people don't really know about Halloween here.

Yesterday as I was leaving our apartment to take Jadyn to Kindermusik, I greeted the guard with a "zao" (good morning) as usual. He started rattling off in Chinese. He knows I don't speak Chinese. He finishes and looks up at me. I just stare at him like "what do you want me to say; you know I didn't understand you!" He slows down a bit and throws in some English. He says something about yellow tape. Oh! The tape on the door. "It is a Halloween decoration; you know, Halloween. A holiday. Like Christmas is a holiday. It is a decoration for a holiday. Decoration." He looks at me with a blank stare. "Decoration," he repeats back. "I will ask your husband. What is his phone number?" I give it to him, leave the building, and call Cody to warn him about the upcoming call. The security guard called him about five minutes later asking about the caution tape. Cody told him it was a Halloween decoration. Then the security guard told him some Japanese people were looking at the apartment for rent next door, saw it, and wondered what it was. They thought it meant someone had died in there! I guess we won't be getting new neighbors for awhile.

In coming up with more ways to celebrate Halloween, I was thrilled when Melissa posted her delicious (and best-ever) sugar cookie recipe on her blog (it's private or I would give you the link). It wasn't too long before Halloween cookies were on the agenda. Delish.







Then a couple Fridays ago we had a pancake breakfast for Cody's seminary class. Naturally, it had to have a Halloween spin. (Cody teaches seminary for ALL the LDS kids at Taipei American School. There are five. I guess it is a good thing, so they can all fit in our small apartment.)

Then last week I made a little treat for the birthday boy to take to his seminary class: Banana Oatmeal Spider Web Cookies.

And we had Spooky Side Up breakfast sandwiches for his b-day breakfast on Saturday.




After moving to Taiwan, an American mom quickly learns Halloween month ALWAYS means two things (or else you don't get Halloween): 1. a trip to Lacoco and 2. a trip to "Halloween street."

Lacoco is a large, dirty, dingy, musty store with old clothes, that are new (oxymoron?), that were never sold at places like Fred Meyer or Mervyns (yes, the tags are still on). They have a large back room filled with Halloween costumes. This is one of the few places that sells Halloween costumes in Taiwan. It is also one of the best because it is super cheap. Like NT$150 for a new kids costume. That is roughly US$5. So we went there. Even though I was already making Jadyn's costume, I still wanted to go for fun and to browse for ideas for Cody and me. I ended up coming away with a 4T costume for Jadyn for some future Halloween and this cute little number for Jadyn's dress-ups (NT$100 = US$3)! Of course I didn't get pictures of Lacoco because, like I said before, places like this are normal to me now.

"Halloween Street" is close to Taipei Main Station. It includes a radius of a few blocks, and has about a half dozen stores selling Halloween goods: decorations, costumes, etc. That is why we ex-pats so affectionately call it "Halloween Street." It is a treasure trove to us American-shopping-deprived western girls. So much so we went back twice. (Again, no pictures, because... well, you know.)

I've had a strand of orange ribbon floating around in my Halloween box from some past year's gift or something. To add to our Halloween fun, I decided I may as well make Jadyn a hair bow with it. The only problem? I can't find alligator clips anywhere! I'm not sure how I'm going to get it in her hair, but we have a couple more days to figure it out.

And lastly (for now at least, because the BEST Halloween celebrations are yet to come!), Jadyn received some Halloween p.j.s from G-ma & G-pa R.

It has been a fun and busy month and I'm still so excited for this weekend! You might say I'm a little obsessed.