Our first Halloween in Beijing saw us enjoying another Spooktacular month of Halloween activities. And this year, we celebrated our first-ever Halloween street party with house-to-house Trick or Treating!
Halloween planning was in full swing in mid-September when Liv and her friends chose Ghostbusters: Afterlife as their group costume. Their excitement was contagious and quickly engulfed the parents when the kids decided to make the Proton Packs for their costumes.
In early October, we started saving boxes, tins, drink cans, vegetable trays and other recyclable items the kids could use to build the Proton Packs. Our friend Amanda dug out some electrical cables she had lying around the house, along with an old DVD player.
One weekend, Jenny, Amanda and the kids came to our place and the kids set to work dismantling the DVD player, designing their Proton Packs and had the time of their life hot-gluing all the pieces together.
Thanks to Amanda's super Taobao skills, she found the perfect overalls for the costumes at a fraction of the price the costume shops were charging. She also found and ordered custom embroidered name tags, just like the patches seen on the Ghostbuster's uniforms in the original movie.
Unfortunately, when the overalls arrived, we discovered we'd grossly miscalculated the sizing of Liv's overalls. Oops!!
I hadn't had a chance to sew in a while, so it allowed me to dig my sewing machine out of storage and get to sewing again! I unpicked all the seams, removed the excess fabric, and reduced the zip length by half. It wasn't a perfect fit, but Liv could walk in the overalls without tripping over, so it did the job!
Meanwhile, Amanda, who works in the Fab(rication) Lab at school, kindly offered to spray paint the kid's Proton Packs.
Steve didn't miss a chance to get his power drill out when it came to adding the final touches to the Proton Pack.
Kudos to a team effort because the finished Proton Packs looked fantastic!
But it wasn't Halloween yet!
The weekend before Halloween, Liv was invited to a Halloween brunch at Feast with a friend. The kids had fun making Halloween cookies and chocolates and stuffing themselves with all the delicious Halloween food and treats. So as not to ruin the Ghostbuster's surprise, Liv wore her Harley Quinn costume from last Halloween.
Finally, Halloween rolled around. The kids enjoyed wearing their costumes and proton packs to school that day, and in the evening, we all met at Jenny's house in Shunyi.
The mood in the house was electric; with the kids excited for Trick or Treating, it was a struggle to get decent food into them before they left the house. It was Liv's first Halloween Trick or Treating door-to-door and my first Halloween street party.
And, of course, the adults didn't miss out on the Halloween fun! We decorated Jenny's house, sat around the fire and enjoyed meeting all the Trick or Treaters who came to visit.
