The first time I spent Halloween in America was the first time I asked for a knife and fork to eat my pizza.
Let me explain.
I’d just moved to New York and a friend had taken me to the annual Halloween parade in Greenwich Village. He asked me if I wanted a slice. “Um, yes,” I said, although frankly I thought he was offering me a slice of bread or something. Then the pizza turned up, a melty triangle on a paper plate.
I looked around. There were no utensils to eat it with. “Can I have a knife and fork please?” I asked. My friend stared at me with disbelief. “No, we don’t do that here.”
Listen: Getting to know — and embrace — Halloween in the US
For those who grew up stateside, Halloween’s simply a way of life. But for those from other countries, they may seem a little unusual.
You see, in the U.K., at least at that time, pizzas came whole. No slices. And you ate the pizza with a knife and fork. So I was a bit confused.
“So how do I eat it then?” I asked. “You fold it, like this,” he said, showing me and bringing it up to his mouth.
The flamboyant sights of Greenwich village’s Halloween parade
Joe Shlabotnik
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via Wikimedia Commons
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I think my reaction was a rather clipped “oh,” in the way the Queen says it in The Crown, which sounds perfectly pleasant, but really means, “Are you freaking kidding me? What are we, animals?”
But I figured, when in Rome… or New York… and started my assimilation into these strange customs. Utensil-less pizza. Very well.
The Halloween parade that very night was extraordinary. Given we were next to Christopher Street in the Village, it was, well, fabulous. I kept saying, “Wow, look at all these super-tall women with really narrow hips — and their make up is amazing!” Ahem. It was a long time ago and I was very naive.
My first suburban Halloween
I didn’t have my first true knocking-on-doors-along-the-street Halloween until I moved to the New Jersey suburbs with my now-husband and two stepdaughters (trick or treating in New York apartment living is somewhat limited).
There, for the first time, having handed the girls their candy pails and sent them on their way, I was able to open the door on a crisp fall night to a posse of one robot, two spidermen and a pirate.
“Trick or treat!” they cried out. “I’ll have a trick please,” I told them.
There was consternation all around. But I was actually being serious. Shouldn’t they toilet paper a tree or something? (I didn’t know then that mischief night was the night before Halloween). As I waited, the kids became increasingly concerned. Where was the candy? They meant business. Oh, I see, it’s a shakedown.
“Hang on, I’ll get something,” I said, went inside and got a big bowl of sweets. They leapt at it as if they hadn’t eaten for a week, grabbed handfuls and scooted back to the sidewalk, ready for their next mark.
Why did I have that big bowl of candy you may ask? That’s because my husband, who’s American, had thought ahead and bought some. I’d got back home a few days before and there was a gigantic bag of sweets laid out on the counter. More than I’d ever seen in one place in the U.K. It was the stuff of my childhood fantasies, mini versions of every possible candy, going on forever.
“This is way too much, right?” I asked. “I’m actually worried we won’t have enough,” he said.
He was right. On the night, fighting off the pint-size masses, we ran out after an hour.
The author’s daughter as Strawberry shortcake, and friends, trick or treating.
Sorting piles
When I had my own kid, I began to understand the appeal even more. We were still in suburban New Jersey, with a pumpkin-carving toolkit and a plastic witch who screamed as you approached the front porch, when I decided it was time for my daughter to join the shake-down posse.
Even at 3 she understood the game. In her Strawberry Shortcake costume, with a long red wig, she’d run up with the other kids to a complete stranger’s house, grab some candy and gleefully run away with her stash.
As she got older, having watched her sisters sort their piles of candy post trick-or-treating, she began to want to do it, too. As someone who loves to file, I could see the appeal. A pile of Twixes. A pile of Peppermint Patties. A pile of Milky Ways.
“I know,” I said one year, “how about putting them in alphabetical order? M goes first… the Milky Way.” No, there was a limit. I could see it in her eyes. Leave it mom. I slunk away.
California costume in the sun.
Steve Holtzman
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Courtesy Steve Holtzman
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In fact, one last East Coast Halloween was the reason I finally agreed to move to California. It was a cold rainy night, and my daughter and I had gone to a bunch of houses along the block. My feet were already numb, my hands were freezing, and I thought, “Wait — maybe I don’t need to be this cold?” My husband had been offered a job in L.A. and I figured, “I’d rather traipse around streets with succulents as the sun gently sets over the Pacific than stay here and lose circulation in my feet.”
And so we came. And yes, that first L.A. Halloween was a triumph. The air didn’t hurt, and if I was sweating in my Cruella Deville costume (yes, I finally joined in — why should the kids have all the fun?), who cares. At least the candy didn’t melt. Well, not too badly.