Halloween
For us parents, coming from the south of Holland, we didn't grow up celebrating Halloween. I believe there are parts in Holland where they do celebrate and I also remember (when a bit older) that we went to themed parties at Halloween but that's about it. We never had any celebrations at our school like our daughter has had here in Spain.
Our first memorable experience with Halloween was the week we moved in to our first rental in the Granada region just days before Halloween. We barely had anything in the house, just the basic stuff and were just enjoying the fact that we got our own rental after living with our host for months, which was fun too, but you know at some point you want to have some privacy back, right?
We didn't expect anything that evening but living at the municipal square, we were always first to find out about celebrations because this was usually the starting point of all celebrations so we learned that day. People started gathering in front of our balcony, the square slowly filling up and music was added not long after. Before we knew it, the place was packed with dressed up people and a huge drum would be added to the music, I think I still have a video somewhere with my boyfriend holding our (back then still small) daughter dancing on our balcony.
We had the best view from our balcony, it was usually better than being downstairs on the square but when the people started moving into a parade, we went down and just followed them. It was a really nice evening, the parade lasted several hours and we saw crazy costumes, had really cool music and good vibes all around.
School years
Once our daughter started school in Spain a few years ago, they had celebrations with Halloween at school. Sadly, the first year they didn't add us to the parent app and I was not informed about kids being allowed to come to school in their costumes, meaning that our daughter was one of the few in school without a costume, while she had one at home, that was pretty sad for her. To compensate she wore the dress for days at home, but it was sad because they didn't inform the parents in the school app, which they did the year after.
The second year she had a Wednesday Addams dress which I carefully picked out spending weeks comparing the reviews and making sure that this was not one of these shit quality dresses. With success, about 4 weeks early the dress arrived and it was of much higher quality than the average carnival/Halloween dress. Time well spent because this year, after wearing it for Halloween and Carnival at the previous school, she still fit it this Halloween at the new school and it's still in perfect condition!
Halloween at her previous school was just a bit of music and dancing for a short period while this new school makes a big deal out of it. I've been impressed!
Preparations
For weeks, the parents association was calling parents for help to deliver big decorations for the school and especially the "hall of terror" they were going to create, which turned out amazing btw! And they also made a program of a few hours, constantly rotating in groups where the kids would do two dance routines and we, living in an apartment almost next to the school, were hearing the music on repeat from 9 am to 2 pm that day, lol.
We had one issue with the original wig coming with her costume, last year she complained that it was itchy and it barely fit her because she is blessed with much more and thicker hair, it's a problem I know all too well myself, so I could not manage to fit it properly. I decided to either aim for black spray (not my first choice) or find a bigger wig. Days before Halloween, I found her a black adult sized Wednesday Addams wig which I can't show here because I only have the picture in colour because realized in the afternoon that I should have taken them in black and white, lol. But I guess we all know how Wednesday Addams hair looks like, so it should be fine..
Missed opportunity
As the morning was a bit more filled than the average morning before school, I only thought about shooting a quick picture of her in the outfit on the balcony and I felt stupid for not trying the first black and white pictures on my new camera. Oh well, when she got home, I said let's go into the community garden and try some black and white pictures.
Sadly the wig was already tangled up and when trying to redo the braids, it got worse and she really didn't want to wear the wig anymore anyway as it was already back to 25 degrees Celsius and even the black boots, legging were already too hot for the afternoon. We went downstairs anyway because I figured I can at least capture Thing and my daughter with Thing and have some good shots with some luck. I picked the best three for this post.
It was my first attempt trying out black and white with this new camera, and I think the Thing picture in the header is really cool as well as the one where my daughter has Thing on her shoulder. I can't say that I fooled around with the settings much, I just adjusted the ISO and hoped for the best.
Hopefully, you like them too! How was your Halloween?