Halloween isn’t a Chinese festival, and it’s perfectly possible that it isn’t an English one. There’s no worthy moral behind it*, and frankly no point beside dressing up and being silly. That’s why it’s more fun than other festivals and more of a reasonable cultural export to China where such noble traditions as Christmas and Easter are only excuses for businesses to change their decorations anyway.
We predictably went to a bar in Sanlitun and met up with a few friends there. I was a half-arsed Freddie Krueger, John was supposed to be a mummy, but his bandages had come off by the time he arrived (this always happens). Adam, Mingming and their gang came as army animals – easily the best effort of the night, verging on furry territory. V and Demi didn’t dress up at all, but next year we’ll just have to encourage them a bit more. A shame V missed the opportunity to come as the virgin Mary, but it was good she made the effort to even come anyway. Of course we had to leave early, but a night out is a refreshing novelty these days.
Less than four months left until baby-day now, tempting to post relentlessly about the progress of her pregnancy, but there’s little to report apart from that all is well.

*The suggestion every year by certain types that Halloween is a gateway to Satanism never fails to entertain, but this year it appears to have gone too far with the invention of the light party, the “safety and values” alternative. Have a look here – http://www.lightparty.org/ Yes, it’s ludicrous and laughable that people would take dressing up as a mummy or a vampire so seriously, but I mainly just feel sorry for the kids. I loved everything horrible or scary when I was young, and my imagination would have been permanently wounded if I hadn’t been able to let it run. In short, I would have been left feeling like the poor girl here – http://www.lightparty.org/testimonials/

“but mum… I wanted to be a zombie. Why can’t I be a zombie?”
“Zombies are nasty. I don’t want you associating with zombies.”

Of course the really scary thing is the realisation that this means they believe ghosts, zombies, vampires and werewolves all actually exist and can be invoked by dressing up as them.