Thank gawd Hallowe'en isn't a big deal here in Oz. It comes and goes and noone really notices all that much - they might play a Charlie Brown special about "The Great Pumpkin" on TV or throw a couple of slasher flicks at you, late at night.
Although in recent years, some gutless parents have let themselves get conned into taking the wee'uns out trick-or-treating, dressed in their delightful costumes and asking strangers for candy (thanks for nothing, TV - what next? Thanksbloodygiving, The Pledge of Obediance and Independence Day? It's enough that we have hot a Christmas lunch when it's 40 degrees Celsius FFS - and I always pity the fool in the Santa suit. Southern hemisphere, remember?). Happily, because noone makes much of a fuss about The Big H down here, it ends up being a futile exercise, yielding bugger-all candy for the kiddies but a lot of embarrassed smiles from the parents escorting them - the kind that say "yeah, I know we're idiots, but we just can't say no to little Tyler and doesn't he look adorable dressed as Osama bin Laden?". They mostly just stand at my gate (the baying beagle tends to put them off actually coming to the door) and meekly ask for candy, whereupon I act all apologetic, tell them I have no candy (leaving out the part where I tell them off for aping other countries' traditions because they saw it on TV), call off the dog and retreat inside...to stand at the window and eat mounds of delicious chewy treats, muaaahahaha! The most dissappointing part of the whole silly exercise: none of the little pikers have the guts to play a trick on me. If you're going to slavishly copy someone else's cultural traditions, kiddies, don't do it half-arsed. If I don't produce the treats I expect to be egged at the very least! Bring it on, you little punks!
