Halloween Preparation and Parties
October 23-October 31, 2007
There is no Halloween in Japan, in the true sense of the holiday anyway. There is no pumpkin carving, no dressing up, no party, and no trick or treating for candy. All that changed though this year when Amanda came to town. I was asked to “teach Halloween.” If you know me very well, you already know that I do not teach holidays in the classroom. I was a little put off at first because I don’t even do Halloween at home in Alabama, but then I thought about it in a different way, that these children were learning about a different culture (American culture) and Halloween is part of us (well, some of us at least).
In Japan you can find more Halloween stuff then you would ever imagine. All of the decorations and stuffed animals and silly things are just unreal. I was not prepared for Halloween to line to shelves of stores here. I came to Japan with the mindset that there would not be American holidays but I was wrong, sort of. There was all of this stuff and people bought it for the cuteness factor, but they didn’t have a clue what Halloween was. The stuff was also super expensive and I could not, with a good conscience, even look at it and consider buying anything.
My Mom sent stuff over for the kids as soon as I was asked to teach Halloween and have a party. Thank goodness for moms and Oriental Trading, right? I was the hit of Japan and I will be happy not to do Halloween again…ever. That’s not true; I just don’t want to do Halloween like I did it this year ever again.
My Halloween started on October 23 when I started the costume making with the kids. This was fun and luckily the only school that I made costumes with. At all the others the teachers said that they would do it and not waste an English lesson on it. After the kids’ lessons that day, I had teachers’ lessons where I taught them how to carve a pumpkin. We carved pumpkins for about three hours that day. They wanted to carve the front AND the back. It was really cute, a first pumpkin carving experience. By the end of that day, I was pumpkined out.
The next day started my Halloween Party Marathon. You think, “Oh, how terrible can it be?” It wasn’t terrible, just monotonous. I go to five schools over the course of a week. I couldn’t just have one big party, each party had to be separate so…on Monday I had two parties, Tuesday I had two parties, Wednesday I had two parties, Thursday I had four parties, and Friday (thank goodness this school got smart on me) they put them all together and just had one big, long party.
I had a great time, don’t get me wrong, but Halloween is something that I definitely don’t want to do again until next year and it will be just fine with me if I am passing out the candy to the trick or treaters from the house!!
October 23-October 31, 2007
There is no Halloween in Japan, in the true sense of the holiday anyway. There is no pumpkin carving, no dressing up, no party, and no trick or treating for candy. All that changed though this year when Amanda came to town. I was asked to “teach Halloween.” If you know me very well, you already know that I do not teach holidays in the classroom. I was a little put off at first because I don’t even do Halloween at home in Alabama, but then I thought about it in a different way, that these children were learning about a different culture (American culture) and Halloween is part of us (well, some of us at least).
In Japan you can find more Halloween stuff then you would ever imagine. All of the decorations and stuffed animals and silly things are just unreal. I was not prepared for Halloween to line to shelves of stores here. I came to Japan with the mindset that there would not be American holidays but I was wrong, sort of. There was all of this stuff and people bought it for the cuteness factor, but they didn’t have a clue what Halloween was. The stuff was also super expensive and I could not, with a good conscience, even look at it and consider buying anything.
My Mom sent stuff over for the kids as soon as I was asked to teach Halloween and have a party. Thank goodness for moms and Oriental Trading, right? I was the hit of Japan and I will be happy not to do Halloween again…ever. That’s not true; I just don’t want to do Halloween like I did it this year ever again.
My Halloween started on October 23 when I started the costume making with the kids. This was fun and luckily the only school that I made costumes with. At all the others the teachers said that they would do it and not waste an English lesson on it. After the kids’ lessons that day, I had teachers’ lessons where I taught them how to carve a pumpkin. We carved pumpkins for about three hours that day. They wanted to carve the front AND the back. It was really cute, a first pumpkin carving experience. By the end of that day, I was pumpkined out.
The next day started my Halloween Party Marathon. You think, “Oh, how terrible can it be?” It wasn’t terrible, just monotonous. I go to five schools over the course of a week. I couldn’t just have one big party, each party had to be separate so…on Monday I had two parties, Tuesday I had two parties, Wednesday I had two parties, Thursday I had four parties, and Friday (thank goodness this school got smart on me) they put them all together and just had one big, long party.
I had a great time, don’t get me wrong, but Halloween is something that I definitely don’t want to do again until next year and it will be just fine with me if I am passing out the candy to the trick or treaters from the house!!
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