I can
remember a time in Norway when Halloween was not celebrated, when the only
references to Halloween were in American horror films and books. In the late
1990s, a few adventurous souls, my stepdaughter Caroline being one of them,
decided that they wanted to experience Halloween as they had read about or seen
in films. In 1997, when she was a teenager, she threw a Halloween party for her
friends at our house; I helped her with the setup. She wanted bobbing for
apples, a cake in the shape of a pumpkin, and her friends to dress up in costumes.
They showed up as witches, vampires, zombies, and in one case, one of the young
men had made himself up as a woman, and you would have mistaken him for one. He
looked great. At the end of the evening, the kitchen floor was flooded with
water around the barrel containing the apples, the cake had disappeared, and my
stepdaughter and her friends were hanging around and talking. My husband and I
had gone out for the evening, and when we came home, the party broke up. All
agreed that it had been a lot of fun. For several years afterward, there were
sporadic Halloween celebrations on her part and in the country generally. There
were a few children who ventured out during the early evening, dressed in their
costumes and hoping to get some candy. But this was small-scale celebration compared
to nowadays.
Norway is a
nation of about five million people; this year the country spent about 20
million dollars on Halloween—costumes, makeup, candy, decorations, and parties.
The amounts spent have been steadily increasing over the past seventeen years
since Caroline had her party. Pumpkins are no longer difficult to find nor do
they cost a fortune as they used to; I carve them into jack-o-lanterns and then
use them in soups and breads after Halloween is over. It makes me happy that Norwegians
want to celebrate Halloween since it is yet one more thing that connects me to
my American roots. I so look forward to the neighborhood children knocking on
our door for candy; I get to hand out candy and to take a look at their
costumes. Some of them are quite creative. Mostly it’s just a lot of fun.
I’ve
accepted the reality (as has my husband) that I’m just a big child when it
comes to Halloween; I remember back to my childhood days and to the fun of
Halloween. Today, I bought a spider candle at one of the local stores. It’s one
of the coolest Halloween decorations I’ve seen or purchased in a long time, and
I’ve purchased some really strange Halloween decorations through the years. I found
a website that sells a similar spider candle; you can check it out here: http://www.angeliccompanions.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=96&products_id=565
Happy
Halloween!
