Treats, no tricks and the day of the dead

by Leyla [Thisdayilove] - 14:58

There were no tricks only treats for our Halloween celebrations this year. Unfortunately we had left it too late to carve a pumpkin but we certainly had plenty of other treats in store. Having been on holiday the week before Halloween I had been a little disorganised in terms of costumes and decorations, but thanks to a last minute shop on boohoo.com the girls costumes were sorted on a next day delivery.

I was really surprised as I was not aware that boohoo.com did kids clothes but they have a huge range with everything from everyday wear to clothes for occasions and all at the same great prices and quality as the adult range. I even picked up some items for the girls for Christmas. Little Man I wanted to dress up too, but be a little different. I know many boys dress up as superheros, and as a superhero mad family I could not resist this temptation. However I wanted to do things differently, so in a world filled with spider man, captain America and Batman, he had to be Robin. I found his outfit on amazon and could not pass it by.

The girls got changed straight from school but we had a little bit of time to wait for our friends to come over. We had decided to go together as a group, not only for safety but also it is more fun trick or treating with friends. Whilst waiting the girls watched their BBC Children in Need DVD. This kept them occupied whilst I saw to Little Man, as it is full of all their favourite shows. [For more information visit my Facebook page].

We headed out into the cold, dark, spooky night and were very surprised at how quiet it was. Last year almost every house was decorated but this year they seemed few and far between. We have a rule of only knocking on houses that are decorated or have a pumpkin so we seemed to visit more streets than last year. Perhaps it was due to a school night? Either way we all still had lots of fun and returned home with cold hands and buckets filled with sweets.

My eldest daughter made a point of counting her sweets out, 56 in total. No idea why she wanted to count them but she did. Little Man loved that he got to stay up with his sisters and enjoyed all the attention from people we passed.

As we had missed out on the run up to Halloween we continued our celebrations on the 1st November. 1st November marks the beginning of Day of the Dead; the Mexican holiday celebrated with festivals, parties friends and mouth-watering food and drink. Unlike the name suggests it is actually about celebrating life and is an occasion to be joyful.

The girls were allowed to celebrate with beginning to eat some of their trick or treat sweets, and of course it gave us an excuse to eat Mexican food, which in itself is a cause for celebration.

We used Santa Maria’s kits to help us prepare a quick and tasty Mexican dinner that was enjoyed by the whole family. Even Little Man enjoyed his Taco!

There of course cannot be a celebration without chocolate in our house. My birthday this year happened to fall during National Chocolate week so even before Halloween we had a house full with chocolate. To aid in our celebrations we melted down the chocolate to make a dipping sauce. Using different flavour chocolates can create different flavour sauces. I like to add a dash of lime or ginger into mine, whereas my youngest likes to add sprinkles to hers!

Using some of the Halloween treats we made dipping sauces and dipped our Halloween treats and some fruit into the sauces. I even used my Thomas J. Fudge’s Florentines to dip into the sauce too.

It is safe to say we have had a fun few days celebrating and Little Man has enjoyed his first spooky celebrations!

This day I love treats, no tricks and the day of the dead.