Halloween in Armenia

October has never been one of my favorite months; the only thing notable about it for me is that it is the month before my birthday. As I stated in an earlier blog, I never cared too much for Fall, didn’t see anything special about it. And I can’t think of the last Halloween that I actually enjoyed. For so many years now Halloween has just been an excuse for American girls to dress provocatively for boy’s admiration. I grew out of that after my senior year of college and have never given Halloween a second thought. I don’t care for scary movies, nor do I like candy corn. I don’t decorate my apartment because apartments in Long Beach don’t get trick-or-treaters. It just really isn’t my thing.
So this year when my counterpart asked me what we are going to do for Halloween, I was a little taken aback. I really hadn’t given it any thought whatsoever. So I told her I had no idea what to do but that I’d think about it. At first I couldn’t think of anything, and I really didn’t want to be burdened with it. But after some time searching the internet for ideas, I began to remember how fun Halloween was as a child. I remembered going trick-or-treating at ROP with my grandmother and dressing up at school and doing Halloween crosswords and games. I remembered how fun it was going to school during Halloween week, and how all your lessons involved something Halloween.
After remembering what Halloween was all about to a child, I was inspired and excited to plan something for my kids. I found an internet short story about Jack-O-Lanterns and printed them out for my reading club. I asked my students to bring their own pumpkins from their garden if they could, and I collected cloths pens and construction paper to make pumpkin and bat pins to wear.
The kids had so much fun learning about what children in the States do and why. They loved the story about the Jack-O-Lantern and absolutely loved being told that they can draw on the Pumpkin. I never thought about it before but how strange it must be to draw on a vegetable that you usually just eat!! The pumpkins were so strange looking. Some were normal Orange ones but other were yellow and looked more like squash! We really did have so much fun together, and none of them found out that I didn’t really draw my bat, but switched it with one that I had pre-made for me. I could never let them discover that I have no art talents. They already have seen my horrible writing, I don’t want to have two strikes against me.