Halloween

Today was a weird day.  

It's a Sunday and typically we wouldn't go trick-or-treating on Sunday anyway but we would do a lot of other Halloweenish things beforehand.  I think today was just one more reminder that we are here and missing traditions and things I love in America.  

I love the Fall.  I love Halloween.  I love pumpkins and trick-or-treating and pumpkin patches.  

In Japan, there is a little of that but mostly not.  

I have seen little hints of the holiday around town.  The grocery store by the church has Halloween decorations outside.  It's an international grocery store so that makes sense.  There is a house down the road that has some creepy decorations and the apartment complex next door has a few hanging from the trees. I've seen preschoolers walking to the park with their classes in costumes.  I saw a pumpkin in Kamakura that was tiny and $30.

We drove to the commissary a few weeks ago (almost two hours away) and bought one pumpkin.  They were normal priced and I feel really lucky that we have access to the commissary because I know that others in the city are going without or spending $30 for a tiny thing.  Eli went to a Halloween party on Saturday and came home with a little pumpkin that he carved at the party.  I don't even know how much they had to pay for four of those but it wouldn't have been cheap.  

The US is having a supply problem from what my sisters report, and pumpkin puree is difficult to find right now.  In Japan, there is a store almost an hour away with pumpkin puree and someone also found some at the international grocery store as well.  I was lucky enough to find that I had two large cans of pumpkin that got shipped over with out stuff.  I was so excited and have ideas for what to make with that pumpkin but I'm saving it for November.  

There was no trick-or-treating here.  That isn't something the Japanese do.  They do hold a huge costume party at Shibuya square but it's mostly just for adults.  We made eight little baggies of candy and knocked on all the doors in our apartment complex and did reverse trick-or-treating and gave candy to our neighbors.  They probably thought it was weird but I don't care.  

We also walked to the giant spider at the Roppongi Hills tower.  

I made pizza and we watched Casper the Friendly Ghost.  We also took our pumpkins out to the entry of our complex.  The Primary had a Halloween party yesterday and Piper had her party at school so there was still a measure of partying.  

I feel grateful that we were able to still enjoy the holiday, even if it was a little different than normal.  We had a pumpkin, candy, costumes, and time together so I think it was a success.