Costumes, Hats and Other Odd Traditions

Let's start today with a quiz. Complete the following sentence: Tuesday was ________.

Most of you will have finished that off with phrases like "rainy" or "a pretty good day". But if you are Australian, you definitely said: Tuesday was Melbourne Cup. Still lost? It's a horse race. More accurately, it is the horse race that brings the nation to a standstill.

For a race that lasts less than 200 seconds, that is a pretty impressive feat. Not only is it a public holiday in Melbourne, but the rest of the country shuts down (officially or not) from about noon onwards in order to drink champagne, watch pop stars perform, and wear funny hats.

Preparing for Tropical Hallowe'en

Sorry, no time to talk. It's Hallowe'en, and I am trying to get ready. I have a very busy schedule of ordering/receiving proper treats from North America (check), making decorations (check), and explaining what Hallowe'en is to people who run the gamut from "oh, yeah, that's an American thing," to "never heard of it and why are you torturing that watermelon?" (ongoing).

Like all immigrants, I am appalled that my deeply cherished traditions are not immediately understood and embraced by my new land. It rocks me to my core that there are people out there who don't understand Hallowe'en, best of all the holidays, night of imagination and unlimited chocolate. I would have thought that Hallowe'en was about as high-concept as a holiday could be: children become actual monsters to rule the night. Where is the confusion? Plus, Hallowe'en boasts more apostrophes than any other holiday, and that is just plain fun.

I have put my shock and dismay behind me and have moved on to Phase II of the Immigrant Holiday Experience: how do I adapt the crucial parts of my traditions to suit this new place? For example, what to do about a jack o' lantern? (See, another apostrophe.) Pumpkins aren't exactly thick on the ground, here.

As a public service, I hereby present this handy primer on celebrating Hallowe'en in the tropics:

Trick-or-Treating on the High Seas

I'll admit it - I'm a sucker for Hallowe’en.  Oh, Christmas has its charms – lots of family, lots of presents.  Easter is a chocolate-lover’s dream.  But nothing celebrates a combination of excess and rule-breaking like the 31^st of October.  “Wear whatever you want!”  “Sure, you can go for a walk in the dark and take candy from strangers!”  “Imagination is a good thing!  Believe in ghosts and fairies all you like!”  Hallowe’en is ironically, for all of its scary trappings, a day when members of the community agree to trust each other and take a one-day break from fear.

I am fully aware that I fly the Hallowe’en flag alone on this boat.  Indy and Stylish like it, of course, but since our Hallowe’en activities change from year to year, they haven’t built up a sense of tradition-through-repetition the way I did.  Erik finds the entire urban trick-or-treating formula mystifying.  As best I can tell, he travelled back to the rural 1880s for his Hallowe’ens.  On Hallowe’en night, he and a friend rode on horseback between a handful of farms.  They clopped down lanes lit with candled sheep skulls, and were invited into dim kitchens to sip hot cider and eat home-made treats while gammers and gaffers told them terrifying stories of local murders and haunted inns.  What a show-off.  I’m sure I had just as much fun strolling from house to house dressed as a punk rocker and collecting tiny Mars bars in a pillowcase.