The holiday that we miss the most is Halloween.
Halloween in our old home is one of T1's favorite memories: our small area was a mecca for trick or treaters, with a large number of the people in our neighborhood putting time and attention into Halloween decorations, themes and motifs— even more than for Christmas. Here in Berlin we have tried trick-or-treating in Zehlendorf (the kids found the sheer density, as every Berliner with an interest descended upon this once American area, overwhelming), a private party (nice, but too old and thus too frightening for them), and this time we tried going to the
Botanical Gardens.
This was quite a lot of fun and I think would be even more so as the children get older. T1 still reminisced over the trick-or-treating and especially our neighbor J's fabulous Halloween party, but they also had a lot of fun.
I met the family there after a class and the girls had already had their faces painted and done some crafts. Then we wandered over to a hay meadow and spent quite a lot of time throwing straw at each other (I think they enjoyed it more than I did)
. We did some walking around and enjoyed the grounds and then we bought the children each a small pumpkin, rented a sharp knife and a spoon and the children drew the faces and we carved the pumpkins for them.
Some more playing and some tree climbing and we went home, put tea lights in the jack-o-lanterns, and displayed them in the window.
(T1 wanted to pose with hers after her bath- please excuse my boxes- they are on their way to the cellar for winter storage.)
job of it. I think the ducky bathrobe made a real contribution to the overall theme of the holiday revisited.
