The Hendersons in Himeji: Halloween!

Halloween this year was quite an experience. It is not a very popular holiday here in Japan but it has begun catching on in the past couple of years. One of the traditions that we have in our apartment complex is to have a Halloween party for the children in our neighborhood. We spent the whole previous week decorating and preparing games and activities for the children to participate in on Halloween night. This included a face painting, Halloween games and of course a haunted house. Audrey signed up for face painting duty while some of our friends here at Shirasagi residence thought it would be fun for me to be a part of the haunted house. For those of you who know me understand why I may face this with some opposition. I have been known to freak out like a little school girl during scary movies and the couple of times I went to haunted houses while in high school. Just thinking of being a part of the haunted house gave me the chills as I was having flashbacks of a time that I ran screaming through a haunted house, so out of control that I actually squeezed through a small crack that no one was supposed to go through. This led to the "actors" actually coming out of character to tell me that I couldn't go that way... yeah right... like I was really going to listen to some guy with a chain saw tell me to come back. So as I hesitantly agreed, I could only hope to be a friendly part of this haunted house as I didn't want these poor naive Japanese children to have nightmares of Americans that are trying to eat them. So on Friday afternoon I got my haunted house assignment... I was going to be a head on a platter! Not exactly the most comfortable job as I had to sit on the floor with my head between two tables and poked through a platter... but it could have been worse. A couple of times I almost suffered a collapsed esophagus as the children would get scared and push one of the tables as they would run away... which then smashed my throat between the two tables. The first couple of children were not to phased by the haunted house, but as the night went on and the younger children came through the laughter began turning to tears. So fighting back the flashbacks I became the friendly head on a platter... always smiling and saying hello to the children. It may have not been exactly what we had planned but the children left with a smile on their faces rather than being scarred for life! After the 50 or so children finished with their games and haunted house they all had an opportunity to go trick or treating at some of our apartments. I think that was Audrey's favorite part as she got to pass out candy to these adorable little Japanese kids... and sneak a couple pieces for herself at the same time. All in all it was an enjoyable night. The kids seemed to have a wonderful time and we were happy to be a part of it.