Last time in Hallowe'en costume??

[SouthernBelle]

This reminded me of a non-Halloween costume. When I was in law school, all of our parties seemed to have themes. For the "Roaring 20s" I actually got hold of a flapper costume. Somewhere out there is a picture of me and another girl draped over 2 guys in pinstriped suits, with tommy guns and fedoras. We looked so good! I wish I had that pic.

[kelownagirl]

Calm down a bit, Crazy. We've met SO many wonderful Americans here on TE that maybe sometimes WE are the ones who are generalizing. I'm pretty sure the stereotypical "Loud American" is the least likely to be dressing up as a Canadian. Most Americans are just as embarrassed as us by those types.

Thread hijack

We Canadians do mind if you Americans pretend you're one of us Grrrrrrr...Don't give Canadians a bad name.

I'd wear theUS Embassy Lebanon security force t shirt!!!

[Crankin]

Sorry for the thread hijack all..
I am pretty sure Scott was not doing anything to portray himself as an ugly American; he is genuinely a nice guy despite the fact he's in the military! He went rappelling in the Blue Mountains and two very nice guys gave him a ride to Melbourne from there. He was just surprised by some of the sentiment he experienced and that was without even saying he is in the military. I think he said the Canada thing because he had met so many Canadians in Sydney.
He likes Australia so much that he said he would love to finish his BA there...

Seriously, I didn't want to start anything. I think I just felt bad because "someone" thought my kid was "not nice."

[PamNY]

I went as an Anusol suppository. My costume was cardboard wrapped in foil, complete with a tin foil pointy hat.

Spluttering with laughter here. You may cause me to revise me "I don't do costumes" policy.

Pam

[PamNY]

I'm really really annoyed that Halloween has become a bit more accepted down here. It's just another AMERICAN thing that we have to put up with.

You can ignore Halloween. I've done it many times.

Personally, I'm going to the Museum of Modern Art with the goal of seeing the van Gogh show. The museum is free on Fridays (sponsored by a chain store called Target) and I'm hoping that it won't be so crowded on Halloween. Probably a vain hope, but I remain an optimist.

Pam

[Grog]

With all due respect, Halloween is originally a Celtic tradition.

It's just another version of All Saints' Day ("Toussaint" in French, November 1) and All Souls' Day (November 2); also related to the Mexican "Dia de los Muertos" (Day of the Dead). The Catholics traditionally made a relatively big deal of it, but it's also historically a pagan celebration, and probably has equivalents in other big religions.

To make a long story short, it's a holiday that usually follows the end of the harvest (although in the USA that comes later with Thanksgiving) and the drastic reduction of daylight (we feel that quite strongly around the 49th parallel right now!!) where people are confronted with darkness and thoughts of death and dead people. By making it a party, we're actually trying to laugh off and confront death.

Or so was the idea, anyway.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to celebrate it at this date in the Southern Hemisphere, where to be true to tradition Halloween and All Saints/All Souls should be celebrated in May.