trick or treat?

In some countries, October 31 is considered an important event because the evening of that day is Halloween. Kids wear spooky costumes and go from house to house for a "trick or treat" which of course ends in the giving away of sweets, fruits, cakes, cookies and others.

I read somewhere that parents actually start making or looking for halloween costumes for their kids as early as July or August. Will the kids wear costumes of witches, vampires, the devil, goblins, ghosts, vultures and other scary get-ups? Will they get to go ghost- hunting or will they go to haunted houses for the thrill of it? Will they attend a costume party in the neighborhood? Or will they just go with friends going from house to house to ask for treats? The answers to these questions have caused some excitement in the parents who are now considering halloween costumes.

In our country we do not observe this practice of wearing costumes and asking for treats. But families troop to the cemetery to visit the departed loved ones. Some families sleep there during halloween to keep company to the departed.

on renting clowns

Based on observation, there are different types of clowns that you can hire to liven up your kid's birthday party. However, some fastfoods that cater to such needs will provide mascots for free provided you choose a certain range or offer. Anyway, should you choose to prepare the food, you can always hire the services of clowns. In our locality I have noticed two groups of clowns which give different types of services. The first group have clowns who do everything---hosting and entertaining the kids with magic and games. There are two clowns in this first group, one of the clowns does the hosting and leads in the overall flow of events while the second one acts as assistant. Both are females. The second team also has two male clowns whose task is only to entertain the kids with dancing, magic, and games. Another person, who acts as the overall leader, does the hosting. In other words, the clowns are only there to clown around. No one hears a single word from them but they dance, bounce, do tricks and the like.

We compared the two groups and personally preferred the latter. Clowns are more credible when they stick to clowning but if they also function as host, it sort of diminishes their credibility and takes out much of the fun.

What's in the loot?

Middle of this month we plan to start buying kids' stuff to fill the loot bags. My granddaughter's birthday is on the first week of August and it is going to be a very simple one in school with her classmates.

So basically what we need are kids' snacks, maybe birthday hats, balloons, a layer of cake, and loot bags.

Since we only intend to have the food catered, the only thing that we need to worry will be what to put in the loot. I have considered stuffing the bags with the following: tablet candies (they love this), some chippies, small toys, pencil, crayons, stickers. I know that I should have a toy or two in there because kids go crazy over these things. But of course I need to choose those that are inexpensive in order to fit our budget.

Any suggestions are welcome.

Birthday greetings to all our July b'day celebrants:

July 7 -- eseomame (Mylot member)

8 -- OURDEW (Mylot member)

27 -- Maybelle or Tita Bing (my niece)

Belated happy b'day to our June celebrants:

June 10 -- djdguy (Mylot member)

21 -- ashar123 (Mylot member)

27 -- Dale (my nephew)

HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GUYS!

to cater or not to cater

My granddaughter's 5th birthday is barely a month away and we are faced with two options regarding food preparation. Should we prepare the food or shall we have it catered? We have already identified the kind of food that would mostly likely be eaten by kids her own age. If we prepare the food ourselves, cook them home and prepare them in individual containers, we know that we could have more with a small budget. However, there is going to be a lot of work involved from the cooking to the placing of the food in styrofoams. We know the hassles of doing all these. If we have it catered, we'll be paying more for less food but the headache and hassle will be removed from our turf. We will be able to enjoy the party more and attend to other details of the kids' party which we have decided to hold in their school. Family members and friends will have their own celebration in the evening at some fancy restaurant I hope. My granddaughter's 4th birthday was big and we've spent quite a fortune for that occasion so this year we want to make it as simple as possible.