Halloween in Italy

Halloween has caught me a little off guard here in Italy. I was told and since I did not see a lot of costumes etc at the local stores I felt comfortable with the assumption that Italians do not celebrate Halloween. With that in mind, we had heard of a couple events on the bases in the area for the children if we were interested. Our children are little and we don't like to feed them a lot of candy so we thought we could just skip this year's festivities. No so easy. I didn't order a costume and we left for Paris for a week. When we returned and took Grace to school on Monday I was surprised to see the scoula office decorated for Halloween and the secretary was busy cutting out more decorations. On Tuesday the same thing was occurring and even more decorations cluttered the office and a sign had been posted about a Halloween party on Friday. What was this? Now I have to bring Grace to scoula in a costume. Where do I get such a thing at the last minute in a country that does not celebrate. Interesting. I dug out last year's costume and it will work. It is a little small but not bad. Good thing our daugther hasn't grown a lot. Save.

I then asked my Italian neigbhor and he too is confused because he didn't think they celebrated Halloween either. He said when he moved back 2 years ago there were no signs of Halloween but last year and this year he has seen some and his child's scoula is also having a party. Very interesting.

I guess this is one more way Italy is being westernized. I would have thought they could have chosen a better method but I guess it is all about fun and having a party. So we are going to celebrate Halloween dispite all of my effects to avoid it.

Happy Halloween to all. I will post pictures of the children next week, yes in there costumes.