Celebrate Halloween in USA as an Indian

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Visiting a place for a short-term period or a vacation is different than living in that area. You cannot experience the lifestyle in a few days. As the fall starts in US, there are yellow and orange leaves everywhere preparing you for the upcoming festive season. You will find pumpkins, scarecrows and other scary things hanging while visiting grocery stores. There are colorful costumes here and there. You will love the vibe.I know it is difficult to celebrate the festivals that you have never seen or heard about but I have tried my best to give the information about celebrating halloween in USA .

Halloween Décor

There is this trend in USA to decorate your doors with Halloween stuff as we do in our Indian festivals. People usually put carved pumpkins at their porch commonly known as “jack-o’-lantern”. There is a lantern placed inside the pumpkin which glows with an orange light at night.

Some put lamps while others decorate their doors with Halloween props. Among these props come the spider with the web . They are hanged on doors giving a spooky vibe. Also, you will see a huge number of actual spiders in your house during this time due to the weather changes. This thing I observed while living in Indiana. While it was not there in Phoenix.

Halloween was celebrated in history to scare away the evil spirits which has now become a tradition.You can play the spooky music at your home or near the porch area for the visitors to get a scary feeling. The whole theme of the Decor is orange and black.Once I was on a walk in the society and there was a creepy doll shadow  standing near the window of one of  the house, I was really scared .Because the October has just  started and I was not expecting this.

If we talk about where to buy the stuff from, the props are available in all the popular stores like Costco, Walmart, Kroger and even in the drug stores. I being there for a short period do not believe in spending money on high quality props. We usually go to Walmart as there is cheap stuff available with normal quality.

If you are thinking about preparing props by your own, then you can buy the raw material from Walmart too. Prices are low and you can get a lot of variety.

Activities happening

Trick or Treat

If you have worked in IT in India, this event is quite popular among office Halloween parties. In USA, children of your society can ring your doorbells during the entire Halloween week demanding ‘trick or treat’. You can get the prior notice of the celebration on any particular date from the society.

Make sure to buy some candies in advance to distribute otherwise children can scare you by threatening you and your family. But this is not done in reality. They will just ask you for the candies and will return if not found any.

Candies are cheaply available in Walmart. If you are planning to buy them in bulk, buying from Costco can prove cheap. You can trick the children by sneaking the candies and creating puzzles to get them those. This way they will enjoy the whole thing.Children have buckets in their hands to carry those candies so if you have a child, make sure to buy them those.

Costume Party

You can check for nearby Halloween costume parties on the Internet. You can play the dress up game and enjoy face painting. You can play any particular character of your wish. Batman, Superman, Wonder woman and other superhero characters are quite popular along with the scary characters. I decided to go for the scary Skelton. There are different kind of prizes organized for the best costume, the scariest one, the funniest etc. Food can be enjoyed if you are not a vegetarian.

Visiting a Pumpkin Patch

On weekends, you can enjoy a visit to the pumpkin farm nearby for the maze and Scavenger hunts. Children enjoy these activities while adults can opt for photo shoots among those large pumpkins. Sometimes they offer a free pumpkin to every household. You can paint or carve the pumpkins after removing their tops and taking out the seeds while painting is the safer option.And use them as décor. Pumpkin bread is a popular dessert in USA which can be prepared from the leftover seeds.

Halloween Movie Night

Horror and Halloween related movies are released this time of the year. We watched one named “Halloween” and it was a good watch. These movies are generally related to evil events happening on the last day of October. A lot of movies are available online now and can be watched at home in the pajamas to enjoy the festival vibe.”The Ring”,”The cabin in the Woods”,”The Shining” are popular movies to watch .

Organizing a Halloween get-together with friends

As I have already mentioned in my previous articles, we were surrounded by Indian families in Indiana. So, we planned a Halloween event together for the kids in the society. I was among the organizing team with five other members. The garden outside one of the apartments was used. There were fir and pine trees around, which were decorated with the props shown in the picture. Pumpkin and spider props were also hanged on the nearby walls. There was a poster pasted with “Happy Halloween” written on it. All these props were those kept from the previous year decorations.

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All the Indians in the society were sent invites with a ‘must to dress in Halloween costume’ condition. We organized games for the kids, one of them was like throwing a ball by one while trying to catch it in the bucket by the other. Also, every kid was asked the character he/she is playing with a little detail.

For the food, we arranged pizzas from Costco. Whenever the guest number is large, it is best to purchase the Costco pizza, its one slice is big enough for one person and whole pizza can be bought just for $10.We clicked a lot of pictures and distributed candies in the last.

Go for a dine-in

No festival is complete without including food. There are Halloween specific menus in most of the restaurants or bars. You can taste a variety of dishes with scary names that are otherwise not available in the menus with some bars offering special cocktails. If you are planning to stay at home due to pandemic, there are take-out and delivery options also offered by almost every restaurant in US.

Go for horror camping

Setup a tent at a safe and natural place or in your backyard and scare your friends by telling ghost stories. Creating shadows outside the tent using light can do wonders. Children will surely get scared by hearing the tales and will love this kind of  Halloween  celebration.

Want to know where Halloween events are happening in Delhi,check out the below link https://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/delhi/2020/oct/28/2020-trick-and-treat-how-is-delhi-celebratinghalloween-amid-pandemic-2215839.html