Halloween, Singapore Style

Halloween here in Singapore turned out to be sort of a big deal. I know that in the American neighborhood (not where we live) they ship kids in by the busload, and a single house has been known to give away 1,000 pieces of candy or more. I was hoping that our neighborhood would be a bit quieter, but I heard from a neighbor that our block was second only to the American neighborhood in popularity for trick-or-treaters, so no luck. David and I originally planned on gettin' out of dodge for the evening, but my friend Margaret talked me into staying home and promised to help out all with the swarms of kids who might appear.

I drew the line at actually wearing my own costume, but went to the grocery store to get candy to prepare for whoever might stop by. First, I had to find decent candy, which was not easy. Some of the candy here is... weird. Like things that are prawn-flavored. I found a shelf that had bags of Reese's and Crunch bars, and grabbed 10 bags. The bill was $98.86. Ouch. Well, at least I had my good friend Margaret to hang out with and help hand out all this candy. Wait, is that a voicemail? Former good friend Margaret has left a message that she's at a wine tasting and probably isn't going to make it. Gah. That's okay, David is just as fun around kids, right? Well, at least he'll show up if there's candy.

People on our block went all out on decorating their gates. Fake spider webs, blinking lights, pumpkins everywhere, and even that woooooo-whistle ghost music that turns on when you walk by. We were heckled more than once by neighbors who thought that since this is an American holiday, we should be the ones who go all out. "Where's all your Halloween stuff? You're American!" I made a little ghost out of kleenex and taped it to our buzzer, but that was the extent of my decorating. I just like to see the kids in their costumes and chow on the left-over candy.

The first kids were our next door neighbors - Olivia, Selene and Lucinda with Jasmine the dog, otherwise known as Princess, Scary Whatever-You-Call-It, and Leopard with Mini-Leopard.

Of all the kids who stopped by, most of the girls were witches and princesses, and most of the boys were pirates. I guess the stores don't sell Disney or Pixar characters, except for this one:

And in case you were wondering - yes, the maids take the kids trick-or-treating, too.

The festivities started at 6:00pm, but by 6:15 there was a huge storm brewing, and it had already started to thunder. By 6:30 it was raining cats and dogs and I had already given away most of the candy. We shut down early for the night.

Where was Millie during all of this? At the first sound of thunder she high-tailed it to the spot she apparently feels most protected. Behind the toilet.

Happy Halloween.