October Fest

So, it is October 31st......which translates to Halloween in America. This is one of those times when I kind of miss the US because the Swiss do not celebrate Halloween. Oh sure.....the stores in central Zürich have a little area with costumes so the expats can buy stuff.....but the Swiss have nothing to do with it.

So how do the Americans and the Brits celebrate Halloween in a foreign country you may ask? Well, there are a few options. Option 1 is to send your child to an international school....then they are bound to have some sort of party at school. Option 2, sign up for the American Women's Club Halloween party. Option 3, find out where the expats live and Trick or Treat there. Option 4, be bold and go Trick or Treating at strangers' doors and see what you get. My favorite story is the

kid who got a can of soup......fruit and vegetables are also a frequent gift, if the Swiss don't shut the door in your face to begin with.

So, how did the Hixson's celebrate Halloween? Well, Cameron's school while not technically international, has enough British and or American families that they have a Halloween party. Cameron said it was the best party he had ever been to. I planned on taking Cameron to the American Women's Club Halloween party, but alas...I waited too long to register and they sold out of tickets.....I was very sad. Lucky for me I was saved by Cameron's school again......because bad weather conditions had forced them to postpone their Octoberfest....and so it was moved to Halloween.

Now, most people think that Octoberfest is just about drinking beer.....this is not true. Octoberfest is about music, food, socializing AND beer. Cameron's school combined their Octoberfest with a Sponsored Run where kids ran laps in the park and raised money for the school.

Not knowing how long the track was, or how determined our child was, David pleged 5 francs for every lap Cameron ran. It turns out each lap was 200 meters....so at the start we thought Cameron would run 1 or 2 laps and we would get out of there for under 10 francs .............well ....... not so fast mom and dad. It turns out that when

your child is with his friends, he's allowed to take a break in between laps, and nobody bothers to tell him he's tired, he can actually run A LOT ! We had to force Cameron to stop at 10 laps.....that's 2 kilometers.

After the run, we got to sit in the park, eat hot dogs and listen to some traditional Octoberfest music. The school hired a lovely accordion and guitar player to entertain us. What was even better was that when the musicians took their break we were treated to a wide variety of

American music. It began with country music ( in

English), then moved to a terrific rendition of "New York, New York" and then continued with some lovely big band music. I laughed so hard at the musical choices I cried.......I was a bit surprised not to hear David Hasselhoff.

After all that running, we headed home to rest. Then we got up and made some cookies, in the shape of pumpkins of course. We ended the evening by lighting our pumpkin, letting Cameron trick or treat at our door, and watching "The Great Pumpkin."

Not a bad Halloween.