Sunday, November 1, 2015

Można? Można! Czyli Halloween in Poland 2015

Our Halloween in the village turned out to be a great success. We braved the cold, and hit about half the houses in the village before it got dark. We left the after dark trick-or-treating to the "big kids". And we had lots of trick-or-treaters or Halloweeners as the girls call them. There were skeletons and vampires and scary Dziady-inspired girls with flowers in their hair and "blood" running down their faces. For me, Amerykanka, it was fantastic, a taste of home, of my own childhood. 

I asked the drunks at the shop if they had anything for me, and I got some spare change and an offer of a kiss. I mean I was wearing a costume after all. I was a not very scary scarecrow. Lizzie was a rock star. Rosie was a purple witch. Misiu wore a Scream mask. We represented well. And did I send all the kids out with Starbucks and Costa Coffee bags? Yes I did. I was saving them up for ages.

















And now the calm after the storm. Till next year!

6 comments:

czarownica said...

Happy that you enjoyed and not followed "Zostaw ten pogański kicz zamiast dyni zapal znicz" trend. Like you couldn't do both...
Why pupils in the UK can learn through celebrating different international holidays, i.e. Diwali, Eid, St. Patrick's Day, etc. and in Poland the nurseries and schools stopped them for having even "Pumpkin Day", not even mentioning Halloween?

We were too busy to even carve the pumpkin this year (house redecoration starts tomorrow, bleh), but got some last minute sweets for neighbouring children, despite last year's complete lack of visitors. Good that our sixth sense was on, as had groups of children all the evening and gave everything away!

Chris said...

Good luck on your redecorating. Don't you just wish it could be done already?

The village kids told us that they had a Halloween lesson for English that week, so our village celebrated it as it was intended- harmless fun for kids...and Amerykanka;)

Anonymous said...

From the photos, you'd never guess this was in Poland and not the U.S. Very fun. I'm now reading, in the Polish press, about how Halloween is temptation by Satan. That's very fun, too.
Dorota in Colorado

Chris said...

Yes, one of my students scolded me for inviting Satan into our lives. I was a Scarecrow. At best, I invited crows into my life!

Leah said...

Did people actually give them candy? or just avoid opening the door? Pretty amazing halloween!

Chris said...

Leah - They got a ton of candy and great reactions this year - not like they had in years past. The neighbors were well-prepared and had heard that we'd be coming around. Plus a few people shouted from the door asking where the Amerykanka was. They thought I was one of the kids. I had a good costume ;)