Halloween Preparations

The other day someone posted on Facebook "Are you guys getting started with fall decorations yet? When is the right time?" 

Duh - whenever you feel like it! 

Although if so far I wouldn't have thought about pumpkin soup or Halloween crafts, Saturday would have been the perfect kick-off. We went groceries shopping, and when we came out of the parking garage, the wind was whirling leafs around. Later at the red light we heard some thudding sounds which could absolutely not be from foliage - it was chestnuts!! Yes, denting the roof of my car!

Of course we, - actually, he - started thinking about a Halloween party as soon as Colin's birthday was over. 



I sent out a text message to my friend = mother of Colin's friend and asked if they would like to come over for some trick or treating and dinner. "Sure, that'd be great", she replied, "when is Halloween?"

Yes, we live in Switzerland! The country where Halloween or Thanksgiving are known but not officially celebrated. Therefore no such products are being sold around here. No canned pumpkin puree, glow-in-the-dark skeleton costume or milk jugs. What do milk containers have to do with Halloween? Bear with me, you'll see!

Wasn't he a cute lil 6 weeks old pumpkin?

Even if you can order cool stuff from Amazon, one of the very few companies who ship to our quaint country, the really cute costumes come in baby or toddler sizes which, guess what, Colin has outgrown by now. Luckily, I found a talented lady who is going to sew a big boy pumpkin hoodie for him!

Last year and the year before we had just returned from vacation at the time around Halloween and didn't really have the energy to do something besides opening the door for the very few children trick or treating in our neighborhood. 

A few days into November we had our spooky dinner

This year we will be around, well rested I hope, and Colin can't wait to go trick & treating with some other kids. As Halloween isn't officially being celebrated in Switzerland we don't even know what houses to go to. That's where skeleton guy and his princess sister come in:

Experienced trick & treating guests

They have been ringing at our door for the past years, so I encouraged Colin to call them and ask if he could join them. They are probably on vacation, so he left a message that sounded like "Yeah, ahem, where do you go on Halloween? Bye!" That was that ;-)

I promised I would tell you why I needed milk jugs. This is why:

I asked and looked around,  and the best I could do was using liquid laundry detergent containers. Spent half of my Sunday afternoon scrubbing off the superglue they must have used to put the label on - but I made it and need a coffee break now!

Can't wait to see them glow in the dark!

Anniversary blend, yes, it's fall!

That's how they glow - while I made my first home-made pumpkin puree

I am going to use the pumpkin puree to bake pumpkin chocolate chips cookies:

Those are some other creative food ideas I found on the internet. I think I did really well inviting another family over for Saturday after Halloween, so we can prolong the fun, keep the decoration up and try more recipes!

Deviled eggs with olive spiders

String cheese witch brooms

creepy mummy dogs

I hope you are as thrilled about Halloween coming up as I am and would love to see your decoration, baking and costume projects in the comments below or as a (FB) message!

My next post will  be a special one. I am taking part in a "secret subject swap". One person within a dozen bloggers gave me a topic to write about, and I submitted a subject that another person will have to deal with, it's all very exciting! Keep your eyes open, it's going to be published Oct 11 around 4pm my time - that's 10am Eastern Standard Time.