(written by Lindsay)
It was a little difficult to work up the energy to go trick or treating with Cavan. Sure some of our neighbors had pumpkins on their front porches, and I'd been told that Halloween is starting to "catch on" here, but still we weren't sure what to expect. Dressing your child in a tiger costume and sending him around to collect candy from the neighbors isn't a cultural practice that necessarily translates.
But when it started to get dark, it just didn't feel right not to be going somewhere on Halloween, so Cavan got on his tiger suit, and we put together a make-shift trick-or-treating bag for him. Once we told him he was going to get some candy to put in his bag, he was all ready to go. We went to our friends' house first, as a test case. I don't think we caught them too off guard, but we quickly realized that even though people may know about Halloween, they are not necessarily opening the door with heaping bowls of candy. Fortunately, of the three houses we went to (people who I knew to have kids and who had pumpkins on their doorsteps) they each had some piece of candy to offer, which saved the evening from being a total embarrassment for us. But let's just say, trick-or-treating in Denmark was just not the same. As a classmate of mine said of the holiday in England, "It sort of feels like sending your children out begging in the street."
Cavan had a great time though. He caught on to the concept quickly, and was eager in his pursuit of more candy. We supplemented his three pieces with some that I had bought in the eventuality of trick-or-treaters at our own house (we had one group of kids, actually). Like every kid, he couldn't wait to dump it out on the floor and see what he'd collected.
Here's a few pictures of our little tiger:
