October 31. Day 304. Spooky

It's spooky just how late Australia was to the Halloween Party. The word, according to the most reliable of all references (Wikipedia) dates back to 1745 and the tradition many centuries before that. But for a country that loves a party and an excuse to dress up we were very slow adopters on this one. I know this because exactly 11 years ago my sister decided, for no particular reason, to host a Halloween Party for her daughter and her friends. Sourcing spooky items was a project of marathon proportions. Now the supermarket aisles are bulging with those same scary bits of cheap plastic and synthetic fibre. Quite frankly I wouldn't have been surprised if when buying a Frozen Coke I'd been asked if I'd like some fake blood or vampire fangs with that. Anyway the party was such a success that my then five year old decided he would have a Halloween themed party for his next birthday. The fact that his birthday is in January was a subtly that was lost on him. So we re branded it a Spooky Six party, played games such as Pin the Wart on the Witch and no-one seemed to care about the unseasonal ghoulish

behaviour. Since then the whole Halloween thing has taken on a a life of its own (kind of ironic seeing it's a celebration of the dead or the undead). But I love it (and not just because I get to stock up the fridge with chocolate "just in case" and then eat it). So it was exiting to see the streets filled with happy little trick or treaters (especially since none came to my door and the chocolate is still intact) and the pop up Spooky Band performance that had the crowds at South Bank entertained. We've come a long way.