We had a fun Halloween here last week! It seems like Halloween is a really big deal here in Ireland. It actually supposedly originated here in 5th century B.C. with the Celts of Ireland. Once a pagan holiday called Samhain that celebrated the end of the year (which was on October 31st) and the beginning of the new year, it was a time of transition between old and new and so it was thought that spirits from the afterlife came back to visit then too. Eventually it became more Christianized, but still a lot of the traditions of Halloween (costumes to trick the spirits, trick or treating, and even jack o lanterns…supposedly named after an Irish guy named Jack O’Lantern 🙂 ) originate from the old Irish customs. So that may be why it’s such a big deal here. It seemed like for weeks in school, they were doing Halloween themed projects. All the local stores and lots of people’s homes were decorated. Here was our window decorations (mostly artwork isaac did at school)

So besides all the hoopla in school and shops, the kids dress up for trick or treating just like at home. Isaac wanted to be a dragon this year, so my dad got him a costume of Toothless the dragon from the movie How to Train Your Dragon. And Rafi got Isaac’s hand me down Halloween costume of a teddy bear. I took Isaac out trick or treating and Rafi stayed home with Jeff to answer the door. Here they are in their costumes.

Our neighbor invited us to come along trick or treating with them and a group of friends, so there was a whole troop of kids that Isaac went around with. Here’s a picture of him with them:

While mostly it was the same as at home, a few little differences I noticed were:

-the kids kind of go up to the doors by themselves while the grownups wait at the end of the driveway or whatever. At home, I think grownups usually come closer to the door (at least with younger kids)

-unless the grownup at the house passes out the candy, the kids will just help themselves to handfuls! They don’t really know or follow the “just take one” rule. We found this out the hard way when the first group to knock on our door nearly cleared out our whole supply!

-the grownups seemed to dress up in costume too here. When we arrived at our neighbors’ they were both decked out in full costume and I felt very underdressed (or underdressed-up)

– they also call costume parties here “fancy dress” parties. Good thing I didn’t send Isaac in a little suit and tie!

This was really the first year that Isaac kind of got into Halloween and was excited about it. In the past, he dressed up and everything but didn’t seem particularly into it, but this year he had a lot of fun! Happy (belated) Halloween to everyone!