My mother-in-law is amazing. So today I am asking the question, are all mother-in-laws like this?
Or maybe I just lucked out.
Last Friday Tom's mom, Meg, threw us a Halloween party. It was unlike any Halloween party my kids have ever been to.
Some years we skip Halloween. Some years we are invited to a party at the US embassy where the kids go trick-or-treating around the offices. Then there was the year I dressed them up in costumes, asked a few Djiboutian friends to sit in the rooms of our house and had them go trick-or-treating through the house. It wasn't that I needed to celebrate Halloween, it was more a case of boredom and 'what do you do with toddler twins when there are no parks, libraries or grandparents?'
They thought I was nuts.
So last Friday Tom's parents decorated our house for Halloween. We have a glow in the dark full-size skeleton, a Lucy-sized glowing pumpkin and a sensor under the welcome mat that does a wicked Halloween laugh whenever you step on the mat, all on the front porch. Poor mailman.
Inside there are spiderwebs everywhere, spiders, silhouettes of mice running into holes along the wall, a motion-sensor spider that drops when you walk by, orange lights, a glowing spider the size of a large cat, an owl table cloth.
When the kids got home from school, she sent us on a scavenger hunt. First we found costumes. The whole family turned into the Pirate Joneses. We decided if anyone heard us speak Somali we might get arrested for being the real thing.
Then we had to solve a series of clues that led us first to our friend's home, then my brother's home, then McDonalds, then the playground and finally home. The kids were mortified to be seen in public in their costumes, until they overheard a girl at McDonald's say, "Wow, cool Mom! When do we get to do that?"
At home we were greeted by two more pirates - Tom's parents - and a full dinner of blood-juice, brain noodles, finger biscuits and more delicious grossness. After dinner there was bobbing for apples and the game where you stick your hand into a covered bowl to guess what disgusting body part is in there.
We had a blast and were fully initiated into the American Halloween tradition. The day seems much more celebrated than I remember it being but I'm guessing that is how I will react to every holiday or American tradition that comes up.
So I am wondering, has your mother-in-law ever spider-webbed your house, dressed you in a wig and eye patch and sent you around the city to take photos with your half-mortified/half-thrilled children?
Posts
5 comments:
I can't imagine that your experience with your mother-in-law equates with the "American Halloween tradition". I've never had a Halloween like that in my life (I've never even purchased Halloween napkins....) and I've lived here a long time!
It sounds amazing and fun, however. Your mother-in-law sounds very cool.
Clearly you should bring all those ideas and props home to Djibouti with you so you can stage elaborate celebrations with your friends and kids' friends. (And for the non-USA citizens in the bunch, they'll never know it's a only Jones thing!)
That's awesome! You do have a very cool mother-in-law for sure! Luckily, I was blessed with a good one as well, but I know that they are few and far between (based on stories from some of my friends).
No, Rachel, this is not a typical American celebration of Halloween. I've never heard of such an event as you've been priveleged to experience. I can't imagine my mother-in-law ever doing such a thing, and I can't imagine me, as a mother-in-law, doing such a thing either.
No, not my MIL. You are a lucky girl.
It's been my observation that Halloween in the US has taken on a life of its own the past 5 years or so. I saw an interview with someone somewhere who said that Halloween has gotten popular because it's a holiday everyone can share. Okay . . .
From here we will go directly to Christmas nearly entirely skipping over my favorite holiday -- Thanksgiving.
Sounds like you have a wonderful mother in law.
Post a Comment