Halloween is not a widely celebrated holiday in Australia. You won’t find bags of “fun sized” candies in the grocery stores, or endless aisles of cheap rubber masks with suffocation warnings printed on the back. In fact, with little Halloween decorations to sell, and certainly no Thanksgiving decorations, most of the stores around here started selling Christmas wreaths over a month ago. But despite the lack of an “official” reason to celebrate, you will find that most Australians are still happy to use Halloween as another excuse to party (as if they need one). So, in honor of the Australian’s willing attitude and the great American tradition of rotting out your adult teeth before they finish growing in, Gabe and I decided to have a little pre-Halloween party.
As is the case with most parties I host, this one involved a great deal of baked goods and copious amounts of sugar, specifically in the form of monster cupcakes. We had hosted this Martha Stewart inspired event once before, and found people quite willing to decorate their own desserts in a diabetes inducing manner. Our Australian guests proved equally keen on the idea and Australian candy made for the perfect decorations. Although, the gummies did get a bit soggy by the third day of exposure to the frosting. Must be those damn natural ingredients. Where are those chemical preservatives when you need them? People did seem truly surprised that we were able to find Betty Crocker frosting anywhere. It must be because we purchased it via means that most Australians never think to use, an online grocery order.
The party also offered us the opportunity to introduce our Aussie guests to another fine American food . . . chili! One probably wouldn’t think twice about chili not being an international food, when you can find it most places in the US, but at least five of our guests had never had it before. By the end of the night, all the chili virgins had consumed two to three bowls each. I think it’s safe to say that we have successfully prepared them for any trips they may take to the Southwestern states in the future.
On the actual All Hallows’ Eve, we attended a costume party. Even without Halloween, costume parties are not a rarity in Oz. People often have theme parties to which guests dress for the theme. So, despite the lack of plastic vampire teeth and Frankenstein masks, there are no shortage of costume hire places, which will cater to some of the more popular themes. I did a brief perusal through one of these shops, but since I find myself financially challenged these days, I opted just to add a few accessories to items I already owned.
That turned out to be the perfect choice. At most Halloween parties in the States, you will find that some of guests planned their costumes months in advance, even down to the finest detail, while others did what they could at the last minute with some construction paper and a few sharpies, and the rest fall somewhere in between. Out here, perhaps because of the lack of Hallmark induced pressure, there wasn’t a single guest at this party who had a custom embroidered shirt. We had all simply done a combination of discount shopping and scrounging oddities out of our own closets, and I think we looked rather good. After all, Pseudo-Halloween isn’t about keeping up with the Joneses, it’s just another excuse to party.