'Appy 'Alloween ('Cause They Can't Say H...)

Staying with an America-phile and Anglophile means that not only do we get good tea, but we also celebrate Halloween, albeit a day earlier, for our own convenience.  Christine puts on a much bigger Halloween shindig than I ever have, and we spend much of the day making and hanging decorations, setting out unhealthy amounts of sugar in various forms, and trying to outfit the children.  Luckily, my children are small, and 7-year old P fits into a Halloween costume worn by their daughter A when she was 14 months old.  Interestingly, P and A have the same birthday, only 2 years apart.  You can see that P is a very frightening bat.  G ends up a jack-o-lantern.  Anthony and Loïc take turns wearing the Grim Reaper costume.  Christine is a witch.  I am a gypsy/fortune teller.  I am probably the only person at the entire party who is not a classic Halloween character.  Everybody else comes as witches, grim reapers, mummies, etc.  Even Caramel, the puppy, comes as a bat.  Not one of the girls attends dressed as a princess, which I must admit I find refreshing. 

For our girls, the highlight of the evening -- besides endless amounts of cookies (Christine's homemade chocolate chip!) and candy (mini-Snickers, because it ain't Halloween without one, or seven) -- is playing Just Dance on the Wii with the teenage girls.  The teenage boys, several of them dressed as the Grim Reaper, enjoy standing sullenly around the edges of the room or escaping to play video games upstairs. 

For me, the highlight is peeling grapes, putting them in a bowl, and introducing the French children to that old American Halloween classic: "feel the eyeballs."