Halloween

Since Lauri asked...

From what I observed last year, Halloween is not celebrated in Russia. In fact, although my principal sent out a newsletter saying that it's a holiday that is celebrated in the UK and the US and Canada (our three governing embassies), I didn't find many people in England who celebrated it. In fact, I found a LOT of people thought it was disgraceful of Americans to send their children out begging for candy. I think it's primarily a North American holiday.

Our school is filled with what they call third culture kids. These are children who are born into one culture, live in a second and are educated in a third. While only two of my students are American, they are all being taught an American curriculum. They've read stories that mention Halloween and see it in their textbooks. We read "Ramona the Pest" earlier this year (one of my favs--and we all love Ramona) and a whole chapter was dedicated to what she did for Halloween. So, the students have the sort of forced-nostalgia for American culture that those of my generation had for the '50's by being fed a steady tv diet of Happy Days and The Wonder Years. They WANT to participate in Halloween activities, but don't know how.

Our school will be allowing the primary students to dress up in the afternoon. I think the middle school will come and do some activities with us. My class will guess the number of seeds in four different pumpkins and then hollow them out. (I'll roast the seeds for them and cook the pumpkins for Thanksgiving pies.) We'll also watch "The Great Pumpkin" and eat the peeps that Jenn sent me (but I'm hoarding the candy corn and moon pies!). Otherwise, it's just another school day.