Happy Halloween

I can't believe it's the end of October already! It went by sooo fast! We hadn't really anticipated celebrating Halloween this year but our neighbors invited us to a party so we decided to go. I guess they enjoyed the festivities so much when they were in the US 7 years ago that they have continued the tradition here in Israel with 4 other families who were also in the US around the same time. I was amazed at all the Halloween decorations they had strewn about the house (although no one was in a costume). They even had a motion sensor at the front door that announced "happy halloween" when you walked in. There were about 10 kids (ages 7-15) that were carving white pumpkins outside on the table. Yes, white pumpkins. I'm not sure why they don't have orange ones here, and they didn't get them at the grocery stores like you can in the US.

Everyone brought a side dish and there was plenty to eat. We had something similar to spice cider, 4 different kinds of salads, 2 soups (one was a pumpkin/spice flavor), hot dogs/sausages, something similar to a beef wellington, and lots of hummus and bread. I brought the potato salad and it seemed to be a hit :-) The one thing that was missing was all the chocolate candy that you usually have at Halloween... Snickers, Butterfinger, Milky Way, anything.... they had some hard candy in a dish which they seemed content with :-( I guess it was good for our waistlines but how can you have a party without chocolate? Maybe I should have made a dessert instead. They did have a couple desserts: an apple torte and tapioca pudding. Overall I'm glad we went, but it made me miss our annual pumpkin carving party with our friends back home.