There's so much I've been meaning to tell you, my friends. Like Katelyn's first hula performance, the Japanese Autumn Festival last month, and my amazing window treatment upgrade. But those will have to wait. I've got to tell you about Halloween before it becomes irrelevant. And perhaps it is already a little irrelevant, seeing as how it's already NOVEMBER and Christmas commercials are already airing. But cut me a little slack, because the day after Halloween is already November.
For Halloween 2009, we decided to take the kids to Trunk Or Treat at American Memorial Park. It was our first year there and we had a great time. There was a good crowd, but there was also a good number of trunks/booths. Some booths ran out of candy early on, but there were still so many other booths there that it was almost unnoticeable. Like most kids on Saipan, we don't live in a traditional neighborhood so my kids don't get to trick or treat the way James and I did when we were their age, so this event was it for them - this was their trick or treating and it was fun. It warmed my heart to see so many individuals and organizations giving to the community and receiving only smiles in return.We enjoyed it so much that we decided to be part of the event for Halloween 2010.
Here's what I know:
- Trunk or Treat is open to the public, meaning kids from accross the entire island are welcome to go there and trick-or-treat.
- It is a community event, reserving a booth is free and no one makes any money from it.
- Organizations and individuals who give out candy do it from the the kindness of their hearts and fund it with their own money.
- Halloween should be fun - for everyone.
Here's what else I know:
- Kids should get the candy, not adults. Even big kids, a.k.a. teenagers, if dressed properly, should get candy, not adults.
- People should not reach into the open trunk of another person's vehicle and take balloons without asking, especially not adults! And if she had asked, I would have gladly given her all the balloons she wanted. Thanks for leaving a sour taste in my mouth lady.
- Apparently, not everyone on Saipan knows that the proper thing to say whilst trick-or-treating is "trick or treat".
- I'm doing my best people, but this candy is not a right. You get what you get. Please don't ask for specific candies while 20 buckets are waiting for their candy too. And please don't inspect my booth to see what other kind of candy I may have stashed away.
- Barbecuing at this event is not only rude, but also hazardous to everyone's health.
- Adults should not walk up to booths with their hands out and say "can I have gum!"
- Adults should not shove their children to the front of the line and say, "put up your bag!"
- Adults should teach their kids how to stand in a line.
- Adults shouldn't be rude to families who run out of candy early even though they were the ones who decided to bring their kids to the event 30 minutes before it ended.
Some happier things I know:
- Jack O'lanterns are fascinating. I'm glad we brought ours and it, in turn, brought smiles to the kids.
- Kids in costumes are cute.
- It is nice to give. It is nice to see my kids give.
Overall, I enjoyed having a booth -
click here to see. But, as you read above, there were definitely some disappointing parts to the event. I will illustrate with my uber artistic computer generated rendition below (click to see it larger):
The top half shows what I remember of the event in 2009. The bottom half shows what I remember of this year's event. Notice how in 2009, the event was much more contained - only half of the parking lot was used. Those blue rectangles represent occupied booths and the maroon ovals represent people or groups of people. Notice how it appears manageable.
On to 2010. The brown rectangles represent occupied booths. I couldn't tell exactly how many booths were there as I never got a moment to walk around and see, but from what I could tell, it was empty as compared to 2009. Notice the long thin rectangle on the right, that represents the four empty spaces reserved by MVA - four empty spaces! When we reserved our booths ("we" being my sister and "our booths" being her family's, her friend's family's, and my family's) we were told that a certain person from a certain prominent community organization had already reserved 20 of the available 40 booths. And by my simple observation of the booths, this organization that reserved 20 booths only occupied three, maybe four. The red ovals/cirles represent people. Notice how unmanageable it was. There were people walking through the event all the time, but as long as a booth had candy, there was a crowd of people swarming the booth. Do you see the thicker rectangle? That represents another nameless organization that had three spots, but only gave out candy in one. In addition to short changing the kids, they were also suffocating us with their BBQ smoke. Note the black circle represnting the BBQ grill and the gray trail of smoke that blew directly at us FOR HOURS. It was horrible. At least the trick-or-treaters were walking, we couldn't move our booth. How much more inconsiderate can you get? The park should not have allowed barbequeing in the first place. But when I asked a ranger about it, she said that it was allowable as long as they had a permit and it was an above ground fire. Thanks. Thanks a lot.
I am extremely disappointed in the organizations that did not hand out candy in every booth they reserved. There was the potential for the kids to get 30-40 pieces of candy each, depending on whether or not a booth had candy (most, dare I say all, of the booths ran out of candy before the night was over), instead, judging by my kids' buckets, each kid got got eight to ten pieces.
The event was totally worth it when I consider how happy the kids seemed - both my kids and other people's kids. We spent a decent amount of money on our costumes, booth, and candy and wanted to make sure everyone had a great time. But watching some of the adults come through totally put a damper on my flame
(is that even a saying). It was the adults that made us decide not to do this event again.
Also, there didn't seem to be much crowd control either, there was no definite beginning of the event, and it seemed that trick-or-treaters were not told that although they were welcome to stay as long as they wanted, they should trick-or-treat at each booth only once. We had kids (and adults) coming back two, three, four times. And it wouldn't have been a problem if we were millionaires and had filled our car to the roof with candy, but we aren't millionaires. We are a regular working class family who bought about 1500 pieces of candy and we were wiped out in two hours.
Despite these challenges, I'll still tell you that, overall, it was a nice event.
Yes, I carved all four nations into our jack o'lantern.
