More Creativity than Candy on Halloween '06

I kept my promise to my kids that I'll change their Halloween costumes this year. They've been fairy princesses for the past 3 years. Same dress, same wings.

For this year's treck to Ayala Alabang Village's traditional Halloween treat, my kids went to Toy Kingdom for new costumes to transform them into All Hallow's Eve vixens. Mira went as a pretty wizardress. Sachi, well, a princess with a crinoline collar and faux earrings. Others went out of their way to come up with more unique costumes. Check out the Dad who came as an M&M. His entire family came as a pack of M&Ms. I saw a Mom and her daughters come in Dalmatian-spotted shirts as a tribute to the doggy Disney movie. Another guy was dressed as the traditional Pinoy dead person: barong, head tied with a white bandana, pale face and cotton-balls-in-nose. My friend Pia P. brought her kids, nephews and nieces to Divisoria to buy cloth. Then went to a hard-to-find dressmaker in Baclaran to have a furry feline jumpsuit , bunny suit, and K-zone character costume made.

Dog lovers gave their furry friends a chance to enjoy the revelry in the frontlines. Here's Pumpkin the Pug (featured below) as Dracula. We met Happy the Poodle in carnival togs, terriers with warlock hairdos and another pug dressed as Batdog.

Noticeable this year was that the candies were fewer and some residents made kids think before getting their jaw breakers. Amidst the fiendish pumpkins, Freddy Kruger slashers, skeletons, and hodgepodge of Disney characters one resident was good enough to inject Christian spirit amidst the ghoulish displays. Kids listened to his talk on Jesus and the significance of his knot trick in Christian life (sorry, sir, didn't get to catch the entire spiel!). Then they got a goody bag with a Christian Ministry pamphlet.

I loved how one neighbor in Country Club Drive put up a huge, colorful taurpaulin display of marine and wildlife creatures on her lawn. She was with the Children's Environmental Awareness and Action Foundation , and made the kids' visit a fun and educational affair. Kids had a great time guessing what the different creatures were. My daughter thought the colored tarps were the giveaways, so I was surprised when she brought a stingray painting into the car! On the ghoulish side, another resident transformed her courtyard into a full-scale graveyard complete with gravemarkers with cute names, casket, cadaver and eerie smoke.

Kudos to those who gave cotton candy and dirty ice cream in place of the usual Halloween sweets. That's injecting Filipino spirit into this Western tradition.

After orbiting the neighborhood for 2.5 hours we hied off home to watch "Ghost Whisperers" series on DVD, complete with homemade nachos and cheese sauce. My husband and kids stayed awake with suspense til 2 am. I was dead tired with a headache and promptly fell asleep.

I think it was the most fun and least expensive Halloween I've had. The greatest shocker of the night was finding out that there wasn't any water in the second floor bathrooms.

Want to share your Halloween experience? Post it here!