Hopefully you are seeing an end to Halloween sugar highs. Have you even had the chance to remove those stinky
pumpkins and shedding fake spider webs from your front porch yet? Especially now that Halloween is over, we all
know how dear, fun, and memorable this holiday is. What would you do if you moved far away to
Switzerland where there is no Halloween for your young children?
Back yard 2004
Much to my ignorance and surprise everyone in the world does
not celebrate October 31st. How
did I miss that in history class? I
simply never considered that others do not do what we do on October
31st. From my egocentric
vantage point it was truly a disappointing surprise.
So, I decided to deliver Halloween treats to our little Swiss
village. The Swiss are much like their clocks.
You set the time and you stick to it and you never ever show up
unannounced or uninvited. Honestly I
selfishly wanted our small children to have fond memories like I do of dressing
up and eating loads of sweets. I politely
made appointments with our friends and neighbors asking if we could quickly
stop by to bring them a little American Halloween tradition. We dressed up, put the children in our ATV
Radio Flyer, rang their bells, and delivered sweets. You know those lollipop ghosts with a tissue
and a marker face. We made like 80. Max and Emory were 2 and 4 so they loved passing
out candy ghosts to their friends especially in full costume. We were graciously received and brought
smiles to all who were not too confused by well…us.
We walked back up the steep hill towards home. I realized in my “tiny Mom world” it made me
so happy to keep a bit of normalcy and tradition alive for our children. We were so far away from our normal anything. Apparently it made the recipients of our
wonky toddler made tissue ghosts happy too.
In the morning there were pouches of chocolate, happy notes, boxes of
cookies, and gifts all beautifully wrapped on our door stoop. The Swiss locals did not get it, but they
really did support us in a sweet, very real way. This still warms my heart thinking about how
you don’t necessarily need to understand but sometimes you just give a little
anyway.
