Obviously, Halloween this year was affected by covid. School was still online, and the embassy did its best to create an outdoors, socially distanced celebration for the kids. Thankfully, Vivian and Elena were both sure about what they wanted their costumes to be early on, which gave us plenty of time to get everything purchased and ready. Vivian wanted to be classic Rogue, and Elena wanted to be Arrietty from The Borrowers and the more recent The Secret World of Arrietty. Jeff has new glasses, which Vivian says make him look like Tony Stark, so he decided to go for it.
He received many compliments, and put a lot of effort into his look. Vivian also spent time getting her hair JUST right. While the color was already there, her curls tend to have a mind of their own, but we spent some time at the hair salon taming them, and the results were great.
My friend with sewing skills helped with a bag for Elena and detaching the gloves for Viv, and I used Etsy for the other props. Both girls were thrilled with their costumes.
Once they were home from school and costumed up, it was off to the embassy. The different offices had set up great displays in the parking lot around the embassy. One of the best was an Alice in Wonderland themed display.
There were also Avengers,
Hawaii (where you had to "fish" for your candy),
Pirates of the Caribbean, with games,
and a creepy doll's house. Elena had no problem taking her picture with the doll.
Vivian is not in any of the pictures, because she spotted some of her teenage friends and immediately wandered off, while I stayed with Elena and her friend. When we got to the "kidnapper van" with the free candy sign and the bloody hand prints, Elena was understandably hesitant. Jeff and I were very proud of her instincts, but told her that in this particular case, it was okay to approach the van.
In the upstairs restaurant area, there was a "haunted house" which was not too scary for the younger ones. There was also "blood" (aka red wine) for the parents who had made it that far.
Next, we went downstairs where there was a farm themed area, complete with a rabbit that felt the need to pee on Elena. Luckily, there was a bathroom nearby where she could wash up. She still loves the fuzzy animals, no matter what.
We finally found Vivian again. She had been looping through the actually scary Marine haunted house with her friends. We took her over to the Sweeney Todd themed area our friend had helped set up, and she got in the barber's seat.
Elena went for the touch and feel boxes.
There were some other areas we didn't get photos of, but the most important part is that the girls had a great time. We were chatting with some of our friends about it, and one demanded to see a picture of what I had worn, so Jeff took this photo.
It's a t-shirt from the Loki show which has timeline variants, but honestly, at this point, the scariest thing we can think of is another covid variant, so it seemed like an appropriate Halloween costume.
Elena continued to party the night away in the Hawaiian lei she got from one of the office areas.
Seri Hening also had its own trick or treat event that people could sign up for. Vivian went out with her friends, but I kept Elena home, half because she hasn't been vaccinated yet and half because she already had plenty of candy. She loves Spirited Away though, so we had to get a photo with her and one of Vivi's friends who dressed up as a character from the movie.
We're not quite back to a fully "normal" Halloween yet, but it's definitely progress from last year.
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