A silly, sugar-crazed, sometimes scary day of togetherness

Halloween costumes at the La Pedrera primary school! From left: My student, Freddy as Anxiety; my mentor, Noelia, as a witch; Agustina as Disgust; me as Linus from It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown; and Flor as Sadness.

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Disclaimer
This blog, this post, and all related accounts are not an official Department of State publication, and the views and information presented are the Grantee’s and do not represent the Fulbright Program, ECA, the Post, Fulbright Commission, or the host country’s government or institutions.

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Minnesotan families added extra layers of snow pants and hats to their children’s Halloween costumes this year. It snowed once again – a haunting reminder of the 1999 Halloween blizzard. College kids and twenty-somethings dressed in fishnet stockings, sparkling eyeshadow, and comfortable walking shoes went bar-hopping on the bordering weekends. They nursed the next-day hangovers with Jack Skelington, Coraline, and the Hocus Pocus witches on living-room couches. Halloween was a silly, sugar-crazed, and sometimes scary day of togetherness. 

Meanwhile, Mom and Dad prepared jack-o-lanterns and set goofy decorations on our front porch. The corny fortune-teller mirror surprised the jumpy neighborhood children with goofy predictions of chocolate in their near future. The disco-light ghost beckoned trick-or-treaters up our dark driveway. Dad rationed the Twix, M&Ms, Milky Way, Hershey’s, or Snickers candy Mom bought in a Target bag bundle. Two pieces for each of the 30 trick-or-treaters – a record high! Mom and Dad dressed up as referees for their friend’s Halloween party; they always coordinated costumes.

Halloween is an excuse to gather, play dress-up, and indulge in handfuls of your favorite childhood sweets. If I were home, I would sneak a package of M&Ms and a Hershey’s bar from our trick-or-treat bowl when Dad wasn’t watching. Spooky season foreshadows the end of fall and the beginning of the holiday season. (Don’t worry, I haven’t started listening to Christmas music yet.) By the end of October, the trees are bare of their fluorescent-colored leaves. Traditions pull people out of the glum gutter. Decorations and costumes transform an otherwise dull seasonal transition into a liberating evening of self-expression and screams. Yes, Halloween is consumerist, but it is also comforting. That’s why I chose to celebrate it even in Uruguay. 
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Unlike some folks back home, Uruguayans naturally gather. Togetherness is a tradition written into their cultural code. Convivencia — a term from the co-existence of religious groups in Spain –  means “living together” and speaks to Uruguayans’ collectivism.  Sundays are reserved for family. Mate is universally understood to taste better when shared with others. Love is expressed through spontaneous invitations to a night out that will persist past dawn. Therefore, the rarity of reunions and their associated traditions in the U.S. is lost on Uruguayans. Besides, they have their own bigger 40-day version of Halloween at the end of January: Carnaval. 
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Most Uruguayans, therefore, prefer not to celebrate Halloween. However, I aspired to share the comfort in a community at the end of every October. Halloween traditions are easily replicable thanks to globalization. Spooky decorations are now readily available in Uruguayan grocery stores. Imported candy brands line the supermarket shelves. So, I bought packets of KitKats, M&Ms, Snickers, and Twix to put in a plastic trick-or-treat basket. I picked up cheap cobweb decorations and an oversized t-shirt for my costume. Halloween transfigured into a sickly sweet avenue of cultural exchange in brick university classrooms and Flor’s living room.

A spectacular Halloween party is defined by overflowing bundles of candy, themed playlists of Halloween temazos (bops), corny and reusable decorations, and of course, costumes. On Halloween Eve, Flor and I hung the $1 “Happy Halloween” sign from her living-room curtain rods and the pull-apart cobwebs from the light fixtures. “Monster Mash” and “Ghostbusters” blasted through the Bluetooth speaker as our friend, Agustina, and her boyfriend, Andrés, took turns painting their faces at the kitchen table. We pushed aside the mountain of Argentinian gummies and chocolates to make room for makeup brushes. Loki, Flor’s white cat, floated in and out of the living room, curious like Casper, the friendly ghost.
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Uruguayan Halloween traditions: candy swap, themed costumes, decorations to be re-used in the following years, charades, and a photoshoot!

It was Andrés’s idea to dress up as Intensamente (Inside Out) characters. I was Riley (obvio, obviously), Andrés was Anger, Flor was Sadness, and Agustina was Disgust. In It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, a cinematic window into Halloween traditions, Lucy decrees, “A person must choose a costume that is in direct contrast with their personality.” Clearly, the Argentinians and Uruguayans understood the assignment. I, on the other hand, did not. Riley and I are strikingly similar: blonde, white, sometimes awkward Minnesotan girls with goofball islands in our emotional control center. My costume required minimal effort (besides struggling to hold a hockey stick correctly – I never liked the sport). 

We created our own Halloween traditions in Flor’s living room: playing charades, enjoying Andrés’s homemade pizza, posing for a photo shoot by the motorcycle, and walking under the midnight starlit La Paloma sky. I showed my friends photos of my Simba and Mouse Halloween costumes from elementary school. I explained how my Mom encouraged sustainable habits during the consumerist holiday. 

My U.S. Halloween traditions: jack-o-lanterns, "haunted" miniature tree, and homemade costumes

Looking at the photos, I remembered Mom sitting behind her white sewing machine at the kitchen table. She made most of my costumes by hand out of soft fleece. As my friends crowded around my phone, I recounted how Mom and Dad still reuse the same decorations, such as the “haunted” miniature tree we have placed on our kitchen table for as long as I can remember. Little s’more people dangle from its twisted black branches wearing Halloween costumes. Agustina and Flor chuckled at the stories of my youth. “In Uruguay and Argentina, we do whatever we can to not spend money.” That isanother reason Halloween may not appeal to families south of the equator: it is simply beyond their budget.

I failed to re-enact many Halloween traditions this year. I did not go trick-or-treating (and who says I’m too big for it, anyway?), I did not carve a jack-o-lantern with my Dad. I did not bake pumpkin seeds or pumpkin cream cheese muffins. However, I replicated the most important one: the tradition of togetherness. This tradition requires no federal holiday or excuse to dress up in costumes. It is, at least in Uruguay, effortlessly replicable. Mate at sunset, long car rides, soccer games, gossip over late afternoon coffee and alfajores, and walks along La Rambla are recommended additions. But undivided attention to loved ones is the only requirement. This Halloween taught me the bare necessities of convivencia – and that everything is still better with chocolate.

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El camino es la recompensa. The way is the reward.