The Charmatz family adventures in Paris: Tricky tricky Halloween

It is always interesting navigating holidays in another country. Halloween was the first big one for us here. Last Friday the embassy had a Halloween celebration. We attended the ones in Canberra when we were stationed there and they were lots of fun. It was a bit of America while abroad since Halloween is not really celebrated in Australia.

My empleada helped me dress the boys and I hired a driver to get us to the embassy. We have our car but no plates yet. The embassy did a great job of decorating. Every section did something different and had different levels of scary so we knew where to go trick or treating with our little ones. One section was Disney, one was candy themed, one had a little box maze foe them to crawl through. They also had a little train ride. It was a lot of fun. Very different from Canberra which was a small affair. This one estimated 700+ kids, all of the Colombia and American employees were able to bring their families.

So Colombians love Halloween, well at least Bogotanos. A lot of the stores and restaurants have been decorated for weeks. Caleb's preschool did something special for it all week. Monday was crazy shoe day, so we decorated Caleb's rain boots with stickers. Tuesday was crazy hat day, so I let him choose whatever hat he wanted to wear (I know, not so crazy, but still fun). Wednesday was crazy hair/painted face day. Caleb did not want to do anything with his hair and I don't have face paint, so we put temporary tattoos on his cheeks. On Thursday he got to wear his costume to school. He had a lot of fun!

On Wednesday, Elias, Ollie and I went to the playgroup Halloween party. It is an English speaking playgroup we have just started attending. It rotates locations. All the kids dressed up, played, had treats, and they hired a photographer. It was lots of fun.

For Halloween day we got together with another family and decided to have a picnic in the park. I had heard that the businesses might do some trick or treating. So after naps I dressed up the kids, got some sandwiches and juice boxes together and we headed to the park. We figured even if there was no trick or treating the kids would have fun playing in their costumes. Both Brian and the husband of my friend were working late, so it was nice to get the kids out for a bit! The kids played for a bit and then we had the picnic with our friends. Then we went to a restaurant for ice cream. After ice cream we saw a restaurant very decorated and kids with bags going in, so we thought we would give it a shot. They were giving out candy. So we went around to other restaurants, we were passing a pub and some people were shouting for Woody to come over and then saying, "canta, canta". Apparently there is a song that kids sing to get the candy. I apologized and said we were American and didn't know the song. I asked my empleada today and she said it is "tricky tricky Halloween, quiero dulces para mi, y si no me das se te crece la nariz" Which means, I want candy and if you don't give me some, your nose will grow. haha! Next year I will teach them to sing it :) Anyway, we went to about 10 places and then headed home. In all it was a really fun night! Here are some pics of our fun Halloween!