Halloween... Spanish Style

I have never really been the biggest fan of Halloween. I mean, of course I loved it as a child, when I undoubtedly put my mother through hours of sewing to make sure I had a good costume and went trick-or-treating on Skyline Drive until my pillowcase was full of candy! But as an adult, I haven't really celebrated it, despite its popularity on college campuses across the US! This year, however, surrounded by my Halloween loving American friends and a country that has begun to embrace this American holiday in a familiar, yet at the same time unfamiliar way... I was forced to partake!

It all began two weeks before Halloween when I started giving each of my classes a presentation about the holiday. "What do you know about Halloween?" I would ask, knowing that they have seen it portrayed in countless movies and TV shows... Yet usually my response was blank stares. I had even brought candy from the US to motivate them for this unit, yet since I didn't have enough for all of my classes, and also because these children are insane enough without adding even more sugar to their diet, I decided to keep it at home for now!

So I finally would drag out of them their preconceptions about dressing up, trick or treating and Halloween candy. Despite my efforts, they cannot and will not understand 3 key elements.

1. Costume does not mean Custom. In Spanish the word for Costume is Disfraz and for Custom is Costumbre. So despite saying multiple times that a COSTUME is not a COSTUMBRE… they didn’t get it.

2. Halloween costumes are not meant to be only scary! They think that all Halloween costumes should be bloody and gory and here they only dress as witches, vampires, goblins…etc.
3. We call it CANDY, not SWEETS! Every time I would show a picture of Halloween candy and ask what it was they would shout “sweets, sweets!” I would respond, “We call it candy, not sweets!” Yet this week they are still saying sweets! Grr…

Other than giving my presentation for two weeks I also went to a pumpkin carving party at my friend Kelly’s house that was really fun! The best was Meg’s Spanish boyfriend who couldn’t find a pumpkin, so carved a watermelon, and instead of the usual jack-o-lantern face he managed to carve an intricate bull!

Finally, on Halloween, despite being very sick (hence why this blog has hardly been updated) I went to Briana’s Halloween party. The party started at 11, and at about 6pm I dragged myself out of bed and across the street to the closest “Chino”.

Sidenote: Chino means Chinese in Spanish and is used to refer to any store owned by Asian people that sells inexpensive products that are usually made in China! Kind of like super dollar stores only things can cost way more than a dollar!

So, at the store I looked through possible costume options. Cowgirl? A purple wig? Finally, I saw in the clothing section some Kimonos. Hmm… I thought. This would be very easy, virtually no work to put together! So, I bought a pink Kimono, chopsticks for my hair, and white face paint and decided to be a Geisha. I must admit, I felt a little politically incorrect buying the costume from the Asian lady… but oh well, it worked!

The party was fun and at around 1:30 we all went nearby to dance. Although I was sick, I had a good time!

Next year I will probably bring a costume from the US to make it easier! But despite the fact that no Spaniard understood why we Americans were dressed “funny” or “cute” instead of scary… I will continue to dress up like that forever!