By Jenna Bouchard
Halloween is one of the most anticipated, chuztpahed and frivolous holidays America has to offer — Never to be missed! (minus those two years I had the flu.) American business goes nuts from candy to cards to spook-tacular TV specials. It’s amazing.
Trouble is, this Halloween I can’t go to the party store and buy cheap glow-in-the-dark skulls and cackling hanging witches. Nor trash bags resembling pumpkins or discount packs of overstock candy corn. No, this year on October 31, I’m in Israel.
Now some of my fellow expatriates here in the Promised Land have just decided to ignore the holiday all together — perhaps it was never a big deal for them or maybe they’re just lazy, but for me, despite my embracing Israeli culture, there are some American traditions I just can’t do without. And though I am admittedly lazy to the extent that the TV, sans remote, will remain on the same annoying re-run of Becker that was on yesterday — for Halloween, yes, I’ll go all out.
Thus began my frenzied holiday decorating crusade.
My mission started with a request from the fam back home to send some essentials - things that just cannot be found here: candy corn, pumpkin Peeps, autumn leaves sealed in wax paper — the works — and for everything else I was left to my own creative devices.
Now living here in Israel I find that I learn new things everyday. Meaning, I am often baffled when I realize what Israel lacks — Dunkin Donuts and customer service — and what it regrettably doesn’t — odious bureaucracy. So I wasn’t so surprised when I learnt that colored paper cannot be bought in packs for $2 and that I would be spending more on Halloween decorations than I usually do on groceries. (I’ve got candy anyways.)
Paper, bought piece-by-piece, finally in hand, my former scissors-and-paste grade schooler self burst out — high on candy corn and ready to go. After making a giant paper pumpkin, fall leaves, spiders, nine greeting cards and seven personalized hanging ghosts, my small Tel Aviv apartment was pretty much Halloween-ified. I added to the mix a bowl of strange Israeli knock-off mini-candy bars like “Peanut Bits” (Snickers) and “Coconut Bits” (Mounds). My Israeli boyfriend and other roomy were thus unwillingly pulled into the insanity.
Still, my most triumphant creations were yet to be made: The Patricks and the Pumpkin.
With my apartment orange-and-blacked out, there was still something missing: people in costume. And since I wasn’t going to find many of those in Tel Aviv, I decided to dress my two identical Spongebob Patrick dolls as Zorro and The Witch complete with sword, broom and green nose. (Now, why I, with all my other luggage, chose to bring two plush Patricks to Israel is another story altogether.)
And though my Patricks were craftily magnificent, I was, and am, most obsessed with my 30 pound white Israeli Jack-o-lantern.
Not that I don’t like big pumpkins, but I was a little thrown when my boyfriend said he had ordered one, it was white — and ginormous — and we could pick it up tomorrow. And please, could I pay him back the 80 shekels.
With a $20 white pumpkin that I had to roll from place to place - I was ecstatic. And thus the carving began. It took three scary knives, a giant spoon, two pots and a fork — and three hours — to produce a mediocre two eyes and a mouth. I have done better in the past, but hey — this is my first Israeli pumpkin. Not only was it white on the outside and orange on the inside, but all the seeds inside the pumpkin had started spouting green leaves. It was one of the oddest things I’ve ever seen. Hooray for Israeli pumpkins.
And though I miss the sight of trick-or-treaters, the smell of the autumn air, getting sick from eating too many Reece’s pumpkins, and mobs of super wastey-face stupid-looking college freshmen, I can safely say that I have had my fair share of Halloween here in Israel.
Next attempt: Thanksgiving dinner…
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