Fall traditions with a twist (an evil twist…muhahaha)

We survived the start of school, and have been adapting to life as best we can, working to understand customs and traditions in England and create new memories. But there is also something special about recreating our own traditions – maintaining some consistency, no matter where our home.

It’s fall, so you know the drill as a parent: pumpkin patch visits, Halloween parades and trick-or-treating, carving a jack-o-lantern, running jumps into a leaf pile, and doing this all with a pumpkin-spiced latte in your hand. Instagram immediately deletes your account if you fail to post enough of these moments come November. Ha.

Of course, I love all of this stuff too (minus the PSL). I still look back at pictures of Bennett’s first trip to the pumpkin patch, where I dressed him up in overalls, plopped him down in the field propped up against a pumpkin and took a million pictures like he was a little Cabbage Patch Doll. Photos of Halloween costumes – the fluffy shark, the cardboard Monster truck creation, dragon and knights, cow and astronaut – will never lose their cuteness.

I started slowly surveying the scene, casually chatting up the other mums on the playground to get a sense of what Halloween’s like here. The general consensus was that it was getting bigger and more popular in England, but nothing like America. I’ve met another mom who has lived here for more than a decade, but is from the U.S. originally.

“It’s not like what you’re used to,” she said. What?! No giant inflatable pumpkin in the middle of the state fair parking lot with hundreds of costumes underneath? Well, at least there’s Amazon, which is kind of the same thing.

We luckily also have friends (the husband works at Husco with Tim, and they used to live in Wisconsin too) give us a recommendation for a good pumpkin patch, just over the border into Wales. We met them there a couple of weekends ago. It was great – a field full of perfect pumpkins and just enough carnival rides to make the boys excited, without taking hours to get through and bleeding cash.

We picked out our pumpkins, I of course made the boys pose for some photos, we scrubbed the dirt off of our haul, and then it was carnival time. Bennett always has to try the carnival games that you pay money to try to win something. Every year at the state fair, I discourage him because I think they’re a rip-off, and they usually are.

But it must have been a slow day for this carnival – he won a plastic police force kit and they threw in a prize for Nate too. They walked back together in awe with their prizes as Tim and I said, “Um, are you sure? They just gave that to you?”

We’ve both been at the hands of carnies before – they don’t just go giving things away! The more likely story was that Nate lifted it, right? Tim walked him back over and to our surprise, they were right and Nate was innocent. Kids today have everything easier.

So we were set on pumpkins. In an effort to recreate another perfect fall memory, I searched the garden store for caramel apples, with no luck. I settled for toffee popcorn.

I still was unsure on Halloween night activities, so we took up an invitation to meet up with the aforementioned school mom at a local town’s Spooktacular celebration last Saturday night. It was another carnival, on a much larger scale.

Here’s where we got our first sense of how England does Halloween. There were scary/spooky/creepy costumes everywhere, and not just on adults, or teenagers. Little kids were dressed as skeletons, bloodied zombies, evil witches and creepy clowns. This fazed the boys for a second, but the lit-up carnival rides distracted them quickly.

Nathaniel had decided to wear his Greatest Showman costume, which consisted of his school uniform, plus a top hat, cane and a red jacket with gold fabric I glue-gunned while staring at a photo of Hugh Jackman from the movie. (Not complaining.)

When I told him there was a “children’s fancy dress contest” he wanted in. So we shuffled over to the stage when it was time, he climbed the stairs with all of the scary costumes, and stood there in a corner, overshadowed by the height of the other children and also in sheer spookiness factor. He didn’t notice or seem to mind. He just danced to the Greatest Showman soundtrack that was playing in his mind.

The children’s costume contest winner? Pennywise, the terrifying killer clown from “It.”  Nate got a coupon for a free ice cream, so really, it was a win.

The night ended with an amazing fireworks display set to music, commemorating the 100^thanniversary of WWI. It was fun chatting with our new friends about the differences between the U.S. and English Halloween – how it had started as a spooky tradition but had become commercialized and – gasp – fun. Her husband said to me, “The English created Halloween, but Americans ruined it.” Gotta love that English humor.

Because I am nothing but a responsible journalism school graduate, I spent about two minutes Googling this and found that Halloween dates back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, celebrated in the UK and northern France, and there are English origins in the wearing of costumes and masks in an effort to avoid being recognized by ghosts.

Which is all spooky and fascinating, but have you tried walking around with a skull mug of wine, eating Snickers and Kit Kats, listening to the Monster Mash and having your children dressed up as characters from the latest Pixar movie? Hey, to each their own.

Finally, it was Halloween morning. The boys were off school all week for half-term break. We went to Legoland and the aquarium in Manchester with one of Nate’s school friends the day before, so it was Bennett’s day to pick something fun. He chose Flip-Out, the local trampoline park. They were having a Halloween party, so why not continue the spirit? The boys dressed as ninjas and we were on our way.

Again, creepy costumes everywhere. The boys had a blast jumping and playing dodgeball and then lined up again for another costume contest. Who was the winner this time? A 7-year-old dressed like the killer doll Chucky, complete with a pretend bloodied knife. (Not going to lie, it was a pretty good costume, but who wants their kid looking that much like Chucky??)

When evening fell, I wasn’t sure what to do about trick-or-treating. What if somebody comes to our house? Sure, we live out in the country, and our door isn’t even visible from the road…or driveway…but I would hate for there to be a rush of children show up and we’re not there, thus cementing us as the “new people who hate fun and the neighborhood children.” I stayed home with pumpkins lit, porch light on, a pail of candy at the ready, and Tim took the boys out. Bennett had tried to spooky up his costume by adding a sword and a Darth Vader mask, calling himself “Knarth Ninja.”

They called a while later, on their way to try more houses. They had gone into one town, but didn’t find anyone out trick-or-treating. They went to another town and found a few houses, though it seemed to be wrapping up and some houses were already out of candy. They worked their way back and finally found one bright, festively-decorated house. The owners must not have had many visitors and dumped their remaining candy into their bags, filling the boys with glee. They returned home telling me that it had gone pretty well, but it was tough to find many houses.

So they ended by knocking on our door, and I handed them a piece of candy, marking them the first and only trick-or-treaters we had that night. Perhaps next year I’ll help bring a little more American Halloween gaudiness and light-hearted irreverence to the whole event, but until then I still have a whole pail of candy to get through.

This past Friday, the last day of their break, I took them to a local horse farm, where you can feed ducks and chickens, brush ponies, and go for a nature trail walk. As we entered, we were handed a sheet and encouraged to find the hidden letters on the nature trail, unscramble the letters at the end, tell them the secret phrase and win a prize! The boys were in. We rushed around the trail, finding letters as I tried to figure out what it could be. The hint was about being a sweet treat for Halloween.

We went back inside the farm’s café, ordered some cupcakes as I said, “Let’s sit down for a second, take a quick look and solve it!” How hard could it be? Bennett and I love word puzzles. Sweet treat for Halloween. Two words.

Twenty minutes ticked by, and one of the employees came over. I stared at the letters… E, E, E, E, F, F, T, T, C… huh?!

She tried to give us hints. “It’s sticky…a popular treat… you might make this at Halloween or for Bonfire Night…” I stared blankly at her. Finally she helped us get the second word as “Toffee.” OK, that made sense. But what was the first word? None of the other letters made sense. Slowly she helped us again… “starts with a T… T-R…” Embarrassed, I told her we could definitely figure it out from there! And I slyly pulled out my phone to Google it.

“Treacle toffee?”

“Yes!” she said. She searched for the a-ha moment on my face. “I have never heard of that,” I admitted.

“Hmm. We had someone else who isn’t from here not able to guess it either. I suppose it’s rather difficult if you aren’t English,” she surmised. I agreed but vowed to try it sometime (it’s like hard, cracking molasses-flavored toffee, which may totally be a thing in America and I have been too focused on chocolate). She gave the boys their prizes anyway, which was very kind because we hadn’t exactly cracked the code.

Halloween rolls right into Bonfire, or Guy Fawkes, Night. Basically, it’s a night to celebrate Guy Fawke’s failed assassination attempt of King James I. It’s just my take that the celebration has evolved somewhat from its political and religious origin, and is now a way to celebrate within your communities by holding a bonfire and fireworks. The holiday is officially Nov. 5, but many towns celebrate it during the weekend.

Because of the open fields around us, we could see fireworks lighting up the sky from every direction. Best of all, the racetrack near our house hosted their own fireworks display. We bundled up in blankets and sweatshirts and headed out to the side of our garage to watch, before running back inside to escape the wind and rescue the burning chicken nuggets in the oven.

It’s been a busy and eventful week. I think the boys have enjoyed the celebrations and, though this year’s Halloween is different than the amazing, busy, fun trick-or-treating night in our Tosa neighborhood, they’re also learning different aspects to this holiday and about new ones. The Snickers will still be there. Until then, we we’re on the hunt for treacle toffee. Hard pass at the killer clowns, though.