When moving abroad, one of the sneaky things that makes the heart twinge is the absence of some of the holidays you celebrated with your family.
Halloween is one of those holidays (or “feestdag” in Dutch). I am saving some of holiday chatter for other holidays which are close by. Halloween is not widely celebrated in the Netherlands. I’m the lone person in my building who has paper bats in the window and a glow in the dark skeleton by the door. Suffice to say, it gets lots of odd looks from my neighbors. Then again, I’m the only expat in the building, so they probably just write it off as some of my foreign weirdness.
I’ve not seen trick-or-treating become a thing, although last year I was delighted to see a father (I think) walking with his little girl in rather stylish purple and black witch attire. There are scary Halloween-themed events that you can find, but my somewhat hermit self has so far not gone to them.
At home, my family and I went on haunted hayrides, ghost walks, or haunted history tours in my hometown or in nearby towns. There is also the delightful corn maze. It’s something you only do at night, and are visited by costumed individuals dressed like Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, or some other horror movie character. Being the United States, of course some of them are armed with actual knives or chainsaws. I’ve not seen the statistics on fatal accidents or lost limbs involving Halloween mazes, but I would not be surprised if there were a fair number of them. Yet I still enjoy corn mazes.
I miss going to those. I also miss the delightful cemetery cake and owl cookies my mother makes every year. Nomses………
Okay, back again with the slight bit of drool now removed. Hey, my mom is an awesome cook.
I’ve been seeing more signs of Halloween becoming a thing here. While I’m often disheartened by signs of US cultural exportation, seeing nicely done Jack-O-Lanterns makes me giggle with glee to no end. When I first moved here a little less than a decade ago, I hardly saw signs of its existence. But this year, I’ve seen fake spiderwebs, carved pumpkins, and myriad other decorations. Not many homes have them, but some do. Certainly more than their were.
So, this year, when I put batwings on my black cat for five minutes before I’m overwhelmed with guilt, I feel a bit lighter in knowing that greeting someone with “Happy Halloween” might be heartily returned.