Halloween

I thought I was going to be able to escape Halloween this year, living in China. As most of you know, I hate Halloween. I am not nearly creative enough to think of a good costume, and refuse to use it as an excuse to dress as a slutty bus driver or "dirty" garbage collector or whatever bizarre profession/disney character they have managed to transform into some sort of inappropriate outfit. Not that I'm knocking those, it's just not for me.

However, I was clearly wrong and actually ended up having a great time. China isn't much for celebrating Halloween, but Alibaba likes to have a Halloween party each year. It turns out that even though the Chinese may not celebrate Halloween officially, they really like it. The bar was packed and they handed out masks to those without costumes. Very fun.

Since China doesn't celebrate this holiday, there are not a lot of options when it comes to Halloween costumes. You either have to think of a costume that you can find stuff for, think of one early enough and get it made, or sew it yourself. For those of you who know me well, options 2 and 3 weren't really options at all. On Wednesday Alexis and I decided that we were going to go as the track runners from Juno. A seemingly easy costume. Although it took a bit longer to find evertyhing than we thought, we were able to piece together pretty darn good costumes. Of course very few people knew who were were, but we did and that's ok with me.

We left work early on Friday since the kids had all left after mid term testing anyway and went to the bar to carve pumpkins and play with animal parts. How do you know when you're in China? 1. Easily accessible dead animals 2. hanging real, recently deceased, animal parts from the ceiling in an establishment is perfectly ok. I won't tell you what part of the sheep I was in charge of, but it was both disgusting and hysterical at the same time. We also carved pumpkins, which left my arm sore the next day. This is the first pumpkin I've ever carved all by myself! I also began carving my name into a pumpkin but had to leave before it was finished. When I got to the bar that evening, there it was, in all its glory, happily carved and lit up in the center of the bar. I felt a little special, and didn't fail to point it out to, well, everybody.

All and all it was a really fun evening. The group that dressed up as characters from Batman won the competition - they deserved it.