I can understand why Halloween (All Hallows Eve / All Saints Eve) is the second-biggest money making event in the US retail calendar; when I lived in the States practically everyone participated. And I don’t mean just kids. Adults dress up like crazy and there were very few halloweens when I didn’t dress up and go to a party (Holly Golightly, Beaudicea, Marcel(la) Marceau to name a few). There is a huge parade in most cities and I remember having great fun at the New York parade in 1998. Not only that, but desks at work have bowls of candy corn* and sometimes buckets filled to the brim with sweets so that you could do some day-time trick-or-treating around the office, guaranteed to make you feel sick with sugar by dinnertime. In England this pagan festival is definately more popular than ten years ago, but seems much more focused on kids, with the emphasis on dressing up and getting ready for Guy Fawkes night.

*candy corn - I used to call these teeth candy, but they actually resemble a piece of corn.  Totally delicious!

Tea with Grandma’s cookies sent from Oregon.