Halloween, Belize Style

Yes, they celebrate Halloween in Belize, but much differently than we do in the States. I think it's fair to say Halloween is much more an adult holiday, at least in San Pedro--kids do dress up, but they do not go trick-or-treating house to house. Some businesses downtown and some resorts give candy out to kids, but for the most part, the Halloween celebrations for kids happen at schools during the day. For parents (and other adults), however, it is another story all together.

The big Halloween bash this year was hosted at the Holiday Hotel in downtown San Pedro the week before the actual holiday. Amy and I learned about it from our friend Anthony a couple of days before the party. He said "You DO NOT want to miss it." So we decided to go for it! Amy was very creative in sourcing the materials for our costumes--we dressed as Poseidon and Cleito--and we used a lot of "found objects" as well.

Fulfilling my pelagic megalomaniacal fantasies

The oceanic ones plus, uh, Elvira...?

We took a taxi to the Holiday Hotel and were blown away by the crowd that had gathered. These people were not in costume, mind you, but had gathered to watch the arrival of the party attendees. There was a red carpet, with velvet ropes running alongside it, and two photographers at the entrance taking pictures of everyone entering the party.

There was a professional DJ (the same guy who was spinning tunes on the back of our truck in the independence day parade!), lots of bartenders at two bars, and decorations galore. We saw some incredibly elaborate costumes, some really funny costumes, and some costumes that were difficult for our recently-arrived  expat brains to comprehend.

Tammy and Jim, part of a huge group of Dia de los Muertos

Susan, looking scarier than I've ever seen her

Amy and Megan (Puss in Boots), part of an awesome Shrek group

Erik and Ana (who knew they liked AC/DC?!?)

Amy and I had a great time visiting with friends, dancing, and downing more than a few rum punches. We were also flattered to have our picture taken several times and even made it into two local blogs, Taco Girl and San Pedro Scoop.

On Halloween night, Tara, Cathy and Aidan invited us over for dinner and pumpkin carving. They found real, orange pumpkins at the Green House in town (this is a big deal--very few people in San Pedro had ever seen an orange pumpkin in real life) and made a delicious stew inside one of the pumpkins. The boys carved the other three, and we had  a wonderful dessert of home-made payday bars. Yum!

Yummy stew inside the roasted pumpkin

The boys, thrilled by the unexpected treat of carving a REAL pumpkin!

Homemade payday bars!

The boys celebrated Halloween at their school on Friday, and although they were super bummed about missing trick-or-treating at the time, I think they really enjoyed the party at school. It lasted all day long, and there was a costume parade, a costume contest, a haunted house, a number of different games, a delicious enchilada lunch (catered by Amy from Wild Mangos!) that we ate outside under the palapa, and every kid got two bags of candy. Liam dressed as an explorer, and Lochlan was the grim reaper.

Indiana Liam and the Grim Lochlan

Lochlan and his buddy Nathan (a taco, of course)

Alexandra, Liam, Tellen, and Wyatt

The teachers + Lady Bowen, dressed as the months of the year

The weather cooperated beautifully, and although it was a bit strange to celebrate during the day on a beach surrounded by coconut palms, the site of all the costumed kids and the sound of their laughter as they ran around the school made it feel like Halloween after all.