The holy evening

Yes Kiwi's celebrate Halloween. As a general rule not quite as full-on (notice the Kiwi expression!) as the North American's celebration; however it is becoming more popular these past few years. I saw a few folks dressed up in the cafe's in and around Wellington and was even served a flat white by someone wearing a witches hat early in the morning.

We were invited to a kid friendly Halloween party that required we dress up. Personally I was dreading the fact that I needed to put on some costume or another. But Chris dragged me to the nearest costume store (quite a few of them in Wellington.) After looking at being an over sized Kiwi or bunch of Grapes on the way to the clown (just about as exciting) I saw pirate costumes. I stopped told the sales lady if she can find something my size she has a sale otherwise I am leaving. So without further ado I present the Dread Pirate Thomas and his first mate Chris.

The high point of the party were the coffins. Yes Coffins! Our host Andrew built three of them, one for each of his children. As Andrew and I work together he was keeping me informed of the progress and I was looking forward to seeing them!

The coffins were much more spectacular than I imagined. Andrew lined them with bright red felt; installed rope lights; and hooked up to a smoke machine. (The smoke machine had a remote control so no one knew what was coming.)

For the first half hour or so the coffins just stood there in the room with no mention from our hosts. Andrews children stepped into the coffin then Andrew collected everyone and whilst (in American we would say 'while') he made some speech or another Andrew started up the smoke machine and the kids opened the coffins together. The affect was amazing!

(Above is Andrew's middle daughter Rachael. )

The smoke had the added benefit of presenting a nice backdrop for the laser light show that was going on. Keeping with the theme Andrew's three daughters were dressed as vampires. Actually Andrews whole family was a bunch of vampires costumes made by Cheryl his wife.

It did not take long for all the other kids to clamer to get and and out of the coffins. It took Dennis a while to get the nerve to go inside, you could say that he had a love hate relationship with the coffins for most of the night. I gave up after three of four attempts at coaxing him into the things. It took Andrew to get Dennis. But once it was done there was no stopping him! Poor Andrew was constantly pestered by the kids to turn on the smoke machine. Once or twice children came out coughing as they would not leave when the smoke came to their necks as instructed. Yes Dennis did the same I had to send him outside more than once to get fresh air and recover.

Unfortunately the camera ran out of juice before Dennis got into the coffin so I don't have a picture of him. There were plenty of games which kept the kids busy while the adults chatted. Dennis' favorite was jumping around the trampoline as per the directions he pulled from a hat. Here he is in his Batman suit.

We finally left at 10:22pm, that was quite late for everyone. Dennis layed down in the back of the car and just fell asleep as we pulled up to our house 20 minutes later. A great night was had by all.

Our host Andrew!