Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Making an American Halloween

Here is my plan. You all have to tell me if you think it will work. If you are Danish and someone such as myself came to you with this plan what would you do? I am determined to make our Halloween as American as possible! ...for my kids of course. :)

The school will have a Halloween party, so that box is checked. But we still need some official trick-or-treating action... The kind of action where Scotty can walk up to someone's door, yell "TRICK-OR-TREAT", hold his little orange pumpkin bag out, smile as a complete stranger drops a handful of candy in his bag, yell thank you, and run to the next house to repeat the process. Watching him do this with his sisters will make me extremely happy.

And we all want me to be happy...

My plan is to ask the Danes to give my kids candy. See, the school is having a party on Saturday, which is Halloween... After the party my plan is to get all the kids to go trick-or-treating in the surrounding neighborhood. To ensure the kids actually receive candy I will walk around to all the houses in neighborhood a couple weeks beforehand and explain to them that if they do NOT give my kids a "treat" then they will get a "trick". :) That's how it works... The name of it is pretty self explanatory: trick - OR - treat ...and tricks usually involve eggs and toilet paper.

Kidding. I will walk around to all the houses in the neighborhood, but I will smile nice and learn a Danish phrase so they will maybe like me. I will then offer them a couple pumpkin pictures to hang in their windows if they would like to participate in our trick or treating fun. I will even offer up a bag of candy so we don't get stuck with a pumpkin bag full or black licorice candy. Kidding... even black licorice candy would make me happy. :)

So do you think my plan will work? I hear a few kids go trick or treating but if I enter a neighborhood with 50 kids I think I should offer them up a warning so they have some candy to hand out.

Plan B is to fly to England. I hear they trick-or-treat there. I will look for cheap flights right now. :)

Yes, I know Fastelavn has the same idea.... but it doesn't make me as happy as Halloween. I miss the activities that make my kids happy. I miss Halloween.

8 comments:

PiNG aka Patti said...

I think you should get together with Kelli and have her write up something (in Danish) you can take to all the neighbors explaining the whole process for them. I bet you'd get at least some that would find it fun to participate!

MoMo 2.0 said...

Thanks, Patti, for the vote of confidence! But last year we had Monica´s kids over for a party that I made for them and then we tried to send them out in my neighborhood to see what response they got to "trick or treat" and it actually worked! Last year I actually said after the fact that I was going to write an article and send it to the Herning Folkeblad in time for this year´s halloween....maybe I should?!? So the Danes are ready!

Astrid said...

I'm Danish :-)
I think it depends on what neighborhood you go to. If you go to a place where there are families with children you will probably have more luck, than if you go to a place with apartments and old people. I think that all danes that are around 40 or younger will probably know what halloween is, even if we don't celebrate it. I don't think you need to "warn" people if you go to a family neighborhood. You could risk that people don't have any treats. Then they will probably offer som ekind of baked goods like a cinamon roll or vanilla crackers. Or change. Maybe 5 or 10 kroner. That's what I would do, if I was caught by surprise with no candy in my house.

Ingrid said...

I totally agree with Astrid. People know about Halloween here, but I don't think they want 50 children to come at the same day, so I think they shall go like three and three together and to different areas.
And I think you need to be careful about what trick that would be acceptable, if any in some houses.

Danish - not just a breakfast food said...

Hey Tara,
We celebrated with Kelli and Mads last year and it was a lot of fun, and we even have some great stories from last year where my children went around the neighborhood and actually were offered a variety of treats like apple pie, chocolate bars, and even money! Soph was a bit bummed because there was no way to take the whole pie in a bag, but other than that they had a great time!
See my next post, because we have already put decorations up too...like graves and crosses! Our poor neighbors! :)

The Blogless Sister said...

Hi there,
Umm, which part of Aarhus are you in, roughly? I'm in Tilst and last year we actually had 2 trick-or-treaters, the first I've ever come across here in Denmark. Luckily I did have some sweets, but like Astrid says, you do risk people not having anything to give, and while I don't think anyone would mind the kids knocking on their door, I think they would seriously mind the tricks. If you do "trick", make it nice tricks that don't require a lot of scrubbing the next day (so, no eggs). That may sound a bit lame, but Halloween isn't that established as a tradition here, so I don't think people would appreciate the "trick" part...

Tara said...

:) I was just kidding about the trick part. I wouldn't really do that. I only threw toilet paper in trees and eggs at cars when I was in high school. :) We are planning out our Halloween play now. Headed to Berlin, Prague, and Hamburg first... so I need to get back to packing. I just don't want people to really think I'd throw eggs!!!

Unknown said...

Here's an idea...buy the candy, hide it around the house...have the kids find it and when they do, they can yell "trick or treat". it's obviously a combination of Halloween and the Easter egg hunt. Or...fly the kids to Papa's house and I'll take them trick or treating. :-)

Papa

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