Day 2 of Thanks

Today I am grateful for being able to experience Halloween in Japan! Although the Japanese don't officially celebrate Halloween, they LOVE the holiday. They have decorations in the stores, sell candy, etc - they just don't dress up and go door-to-door like we do. So as part of culture exchange, it is common for us Americans to invite our Japanese friends onto base to celebrate with us. I love Halloween...so it is great to see so many people get excited about it here too! I remember growing up in Warminster, PA and having so many kids on the block! We would have a ton of kids trick-or-treating together and it was always so much fun. But slowly, the kids grew up and there were less and less kids going door-to-door. It made me sad... Then, when I had my own kids, I loved dressing them up and parading around in OH. But nothing would prepare me for what I would experience here at Yokota. Literally THOUSANDS of kids on base plus their Japanese friends = CRAZY AMOUNTS OF TRICK-OR-TREATERS! The first 2 years here Patrick was away on business so I had to do it on my own. I would run the kids around to a few houses, then come back to hand out candy. We were warned to get 800+ pieces of candy...but that only lasted about 1 hour!!! It was a nonstop stream of kids...melting my heart :-) The best part was hearing the Japanese kids trying to say "tricko-treato", "happy harroween", and "tank you". But this year, Patrick was home to hand out candy and I invited my Japanese friends and children to come with us. We carved pumpkins, had a BBQ and went out for an hour. By the time we came back, Patrick was out of candy and we turned off the porch lights! Another amazing adventure in Japan!