Joey went for her very first Trick or Treat expedition on Saturday!
The private housing estate just next to the Singapore American School is known for its happening Halloween celebration every year. The house owners take great effort to ‘dress up’ their gates and decorate their houses with pumpkins, skeletons, spider webs, bats etc, and the whole place just bustle with the Halloween atmosphere! There are many Americans living in this place, and Halloween is a big festival to them.
By 5pm, the whole place was already packed with people on the streets - kids and adults all dressed up as funny characters, ghosts, skeletons, witches and what-nots! All the kids were excitedly going from house to house to get their candies and chocolates. We initially only wanted to drive past the place to see their decorations, but the whole place was filled with so much fun & excitement that we quickly went home to change Joey and brought her back to join in the Halloween Trick or Treat fun!
Needless to say, with nothing prepared at all, we only had one option – to dress her up as a PRINCESS. Haha! If anyone asked, I would say that she’s the princess who’s going to pick flowers with her basket!
The Halloween decorations. Nice & spooky. :)
Pardon the unclear photos. Everyone was practically running from one house to another, so there was no way I could get clear pictures of the dressed-up characters. I can only say that the most popular character this year is JACK SPARROW! Many adults and kids were dressed up as him!
The triangle white thing is actually a kid dressed up as a slice of pizza. And I like the fat bubble girl.
I managed to catch a running Jack Sparrow.. very blur though…
The people were so creative. Apart from those who purchased professional costumes, there were many who made their own costumes as well, using garbage bags, cardboards, steel pieces, etc.
Joey had lots of fun running along with the crowds of people, going from house to house to get her candies. It was really a new & interesting experience for her. :)
This was the best-dressed candy-giver, in my opinion. She even had a place to rest in. I had a hard time persuading Joey to stand near her, because she found her too scary-looking. Haha!
Joey had a great harvest! It was hard work, see how much she was sweating!
Joey said she wants to dress up as a monster next year! Haha! And I’ve decided to go as a witch!
Happy Halloween! =D
9 comments:
Wa...so fun!
I did not know about this street...
Maybe next yr, I will get my whole zone to go!
Got free entertainment!!! :)
Wah!!! So fun!
It is really fun, but it's really more for the kids than for adults. Ed- You can get your adult members with kids to go. If everyone is sporting enough to dress up, it's alot of fun... :)
I have been a lurker of your blog for a while and I am quite surprised to have read this post.
As a christian parent, I don't think I will allow my kids to celebrate Halloween. I even make sure that my kid's preschool don't celebrate Halloween by putting him in a christian kindy.
Most parents treat Halloween as being harmless, but the essence of it actually stems from the occult; originated in Celtic Ireland and England in the 5th century B.C when it was believed the dead would be making an annual visit to their families. It will be almost akin to observing the lunar 7th month in our culture.
Just some food for thought, the choice is yours. But as a fellow christian I jus feel that as parents, we need to their spiritual guide as you help raise them in the Christian faith. And not just be caught up in 'festivities' n think that it is all in harmless good fun.
Hi Rachel, thanks for popping by my blog. :)
I agree wholeheartedly with you that we as parents should always be the spiritual guide to our children. To most people in Singapore,celebrating halloween has no spiritual meaning like you mention, inspite of the origins it may have. To my kids, it's nothing more than a time to get candies and have some fun. Joey still loves Jesus, that's for sure. =)
But everyone is entitled to their opinions & views, sp thanks for sharing yours here. You must be a very devoted mum who always wants the best for your kids too. :)
Cheers!
I think Halloween is pretty awesome. You get to dress up and eat tons of candy. What's not to like? Too bad my kids are too small to join in the fun but I already have their costumes planned out for next year.
Halloween isn't going to make your kids backslide. Just like reading Harry Potter and rocking out to MJ won't. We live in the real world and if you raise them up well, a little controversy is not going to kill. BTW, if the 7th month was an entire month of party time and giving out candy instead of burning paper and polluting the earth, it'll be the next coolest festival. Next to Christmas, that is.
Daphne,
Backsliding? I am not sure. But Harry Potter is not as innocent as u think, when dark magic arts are being glorified. Have u heard of Nuero linguistic Programming? The media has been using it from the day it started.
All I know is that God told us to be holy as He is holy. And that we are to be separate from the world. Just obeying Eph 5:11 "Take NO part in and have NO fellowship with the fruitless deeds and enterprises of darkness, but instead [let your lives be so in CONTRAST as to] [a]expose and reprove and convict them." We have many opportunities to be witnesses of Christ when others find out we don't "celebrate" this occasion.If we look like and act like the world, how will we remain salty?
U might want to read this article from an opinion of Halloween. Like u said, in the states, Halloween is indeed the next biggest thing to Christmas.
http://blog.nj.com/njv_george_berkin/2009/10/rethinking_halloween.html
I guess I am just a prude when it comes to this n take my children's n mine spiritual life too seriously.
Sorry Klessis, to have to use your comments board like a forum.
@Rachel, it's cool that you're protective of your kids. I am too. Like I teach them that satan is bad and eating too much candy will make all your teeth drop out. But not exposing them to things is not going to make them holy. Quite the contrary because soon enough they will grow up and all their friends will tell them how awesome Halloween is.
They will then a) look like a moron for not knowing what it is or b) have no friends because they spend the next 15 minutes preaching about how Halloween will destroy your soul or c) secretly agree that Halloween is in fact pretty awesome.
I grew up being banned from everything non-Christian because TV and rock music would put me in danger of eternal damnation. Guess what? I grew up and I learnt where to draw the line between what is holy, amoral and downright evil.
I could do the same and put my kids in a "holy bubble" but again, we live in the real world and I'm more inclined to teach them what is right and wrong, then trust them to make the right choices. Then when folks see how awesome and cool and holy they are, they won't need a 15 minute sermon to tell them Jesus rocks their socks.
BTW, someone very wise once told me "eat the fish and spit out the bones". It's awfully profound but let me break it down for you. Sure you can eat plain rice all your life and survive. But fish is pretty great. Except that you're in danger of choking on a bone and dying.
So you gotta learn to eat what's good and spit out what's bad so it doesn't kill you. How's that for a metaphor?
i.e. Just because there's a questionable sex scene in a show doesn't make it evil. Tarantino is an absolute genius and one of my all time favorite directors but it's not to say that I agree with everything he does.
During my days in media school, I did an entire thesis on NLP and trust me, it's not as powerful as it is made out to be. Till this day, there's still an absence of empirical evidence to support it's extravagant claims. It's probably *highly effective* on people with an IQ of below 70, but on everyone else, a plethora of factors take precedence in influencing human behavior. That's why scientists are hard pressed to prove the impact of NLP.
I'm just saying, maybe it's not wrong to trust your kids a little. They're not as easily corruptible as people think. And the world is not a big, bad scary place.
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