Halloween in New Zealand

Halloween in New Zealand, well it's not a huge deal. Every year the big department stores stock up on costumes and candy, isles of the stuff, hoping for Halloween to become another commercialised cash event. Sad thing is I only saw 1 trick or treator last year and most of the Halloween stock was still in the isles nearly up to Christmas at reduced to clear prices.

I went trick or treating in my neighborhood as a kid along with my brother and a few cousins, we'd take off on our BMX bikes with what masks we could find in hand and canvas the entire hood, we'd knock on door after door yelling trick or treat hoping that some one would understand what was going on and give us some candy but most of the time the reaction was "what charity are you collecting for?"
which was kind of confusing to us.

Each year there were only about 3 groups going around trick or treating, us who had our bikes and masks, the no costume kids still with the school back packs on and the hard out kids in full costume along with mum, this was usually it but sometimes we'd get the out of neighborhood kids, strange they were, smelled like cheese.

As we roamed the streets we'd frequently pass the no costume kids, we'd pass on information about what houses were paying out and move on. For some reason the no costume kids always got the best stuff.

Being that Halloween wasn't very well known of down here we would rarely get candy, money was what we got mostly but we also got some very strange items also, the strangest lot we got was a 2 litre jug of milk, a can of creamed corn and a packet of crackers, I think they thought we were collecting for feed the homeless or something.

I see Halloween getting bigger in New Zealand every year, it has never been part of New Zealands history and I doubt many here would know the true meaning behind it what they would see for the most part is the corporate commercial side of it and that's what I think Halloween would mean to us here.

Plus it's heaps of fun for the kids.

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Halloeen, Trick, Treat, Costumes, Mask, October