Hallo-what?

Halloween in Australia is a decidedly hit-or-miss sort of affair. It's not really advertised much, but various party shops will sell Halloween themed stuff, and sometimes bakeries will have Halloween specials. As for the trick-or-treating, well - it happens in some neighbourhoods and not in others, although how you work out if yours is a trick or treating neighbourhood is beyond me.

Some parents were talking about this whole thing on Friday.One Mum said that previously, she had no idea what Halloween was, so when some random kid showed up asking for candy her response was, "Candy? Why would I give you candy? Bugger off!" Ha! I love it. Endless episodes of Scooby Doo means my kids know what Halloween is, but also understand that it's just not the done thing in Australia.

All three of my kids are huge fans of dress-up, regardless of the day of the month - we have endless fairies, palace guards, "two headed messy hair monsters," aliens, explorers, pirates, ghosts...and so on. Most of their costumes are home-made from bits and pieces they find around the house - bandannas, bits of cardboard, my chef aprons, whatever. DD1 is particularly clever in this regard, and has a fabulous imagination.

When I left for work this afternoon, I was very content in the knowledge that my house was being guarded by this creature:


I'm not sure what is more scary about this - the penguin-patterned footsie pajamas, the stainless steel bowl which is clearly intercepting messages from outer space, or the edward scissorhands green onion nails. Either way it's making me glad I own a handbag which says "If you think I'm nuts, you should meet my children!"