Happy Halloween, happy all saints, and happy all souls

Halloween is a holiday that is only just now beginning to take off in Austria. It a holiday that Americans blow out of the water. So much so that they actually refer to it as “American Halloween.” Since Aeneas attends an international school, they had a Halloween dress up party. The kids could only wear their costume during the party however, they could be as bloody and well armed as they liked as we found out later. We took a safe route and put together a stick man costume. Cool, clever and non-controversial. No one actually trick or treats unless the neighbors have been prepped ahead of time to have candy on hand. The Austrians are starting to figure it out, sort of.

The boys are continuing their tradition of cooking once a month with Dad (God bless him, I don’t know how he manages it). Aeneas cooked us a perfect fall dinner of pumpkin soup for Halloween night and then the boys threw us a party with a shadow play, games and a spooky dessert. It was awesome and very thoughtful.

Since Austria is a Catholic nation, all of the kids are required to attend religion in public school and All Saints is a national holiday. All of the school sort of handle the week of All Saints as some sort of fall break and take off different days. In other words it’s impossible to plan a family trip if you have more than one kid. Patrick had school on Monday but was off the rest of the week. Aeneas didn’t have school Monday-Wednesday but had school on Thursday and Friday. Go figure.

#Halloween #school #everydaylife #culture #curiosities #home #strange #fun #church #family