A Violin Halloween
Well, we were very surprised to find that Halloween is a thing here!
I was planning to get costumes for the kids anyway since I figured with all the foreigners here, there would be somewhere we could go and do something or other for Halloween. But wow, I did not expect what I discovered! Apparently the major foreign area has this ENORMOUS trick or treating event. I mean, it's like an entire square mile of little shops and huge malls and EVERYONE passes out candy to kids. I mean seriously, you wouldn't have enough time to visit every place handing out candy by the time the event was done. And thousands and thousands of people were there, all in costumes. Even a lot of the adults had costumes! On the big streets, there were so many people you had to wait in line for the candy! It was insane!
I usually like to sew the kids' costumes, but since I didn't have a sewing machine I just tried to let it go. I was able to buy them great costumes, and they were really happy with them, but I missed sewing them. Plus, when I make them, I can usually either make them extremely cheap or I can make them rewearable as regular clothes, and that's not such an option with buying pre-made costumes. Anyway, the kids were happy, and that's what counts, right?
Our violin school happens to also be in this area with the trick or treating. So the teacher came up with this plan to have kids wearing costumes stand outside and play a little song for the people who were walking up to get candy. It was pretty simple, the kids just played whatever song they were working on at that time. But it made for a very fun day! The kids also had their regular lessons and orchestra practice. So between all of those things, I think we actually did violin for FIVE HOURS. Wow. That was insane!
Seriously, I never imagined spending that much time in a day on violin. Even in a week, as a matter of fact. I did get to take the boys to the park during the second hour of the girls' orchestra practice so at least K wasn't sitting in the violin school for so long. But having gotten there so early in the morning did end up being pretty helpful, because by the time we were putting the violins back in the car so we could trick or treat, the line at the parking garage was like thirty cars long! Everyone was coming for the trick or treating!
Once all the violin was done and I had bought another cup of coffee, we hit the trick or treating. We started out on the small streets by the violin school, but then we headed to the main street. That was so crazy that we ended up going straight back to the small streets. There were just so many people! We should've put air tags on each of our kids ha. Anyway, once we were back on the small streets it was much more pleasant! And the shop owners were just so happy to see all our kids in their little costumes and they were so tickled to hear each of them wishing them a happy Halloween.
We stayed out trick or treating for several hours until the kids got tired enough to be willing to sacrifice all the potential candy that they'd miss out on by going home. H and I were WAY past that point. But we all had a great time! I think it was probably the most memorable Halloween we've had in a while, maybe only tied with the time we had a bonfire and a hay ride at my parents' house in 2020. It turned out to be a great Halloween!
