Antipodean Holidays: Halloween & Guy Fawkes Day

Being in a new country, we have to get used to different holidays. The day after we arrived, it was Boxing Day, which is not celebrated in the US. As the year progressed, we learned about and celebrated Waitangi Day, ANZAC Day, Queen's Birthday, Mother's Day in May but Father's Day in September, and Labour Day in October.
Most recently, we had Halloween on October 31 and Guy Fawkes Day on November 5:

HALLOWEEN -
Sadly, it's not a big holiday here. Many of you know how much I liked dressing up as the Energizer Bunny, wearing pink footy pajamas, and banging my drum all day at school. Good times. Plus there's all that chocolate. Need I say more? I LOVE Halloween. Our own family tradition included the Annual Pumpkin Throwing on November 1st when we lobbed the now-rotten pumpkin off the deck into the wheelie bin below. So I was disappointed to find out that nobody really does anything for Halloween. No pumpkins to carve. Nobody at school dresses up. I had resigned myself to Halloween as a non-event.

Imagine my suprise when trick-or-treaters came to my door about 6:30! Uh oh. I had nothing to give them. There were 4 cute little kids with 2 moms, and all I could do was plead American ignorance; "I was told you didn't celebrate Halloween in NZ. Sorry! I don't have anything to give you." The oldest girl, about 8, responded cheerfully, "That's OK. Thank you! Have a Happy Halloween!" She was so polite and so sincere. I felt like a heel.

After they left, I rummaged through my kitchen and found some chocolate granola bars to give away, in case more kids show up. And they did. Then more. Then I ran out of chocolate granola bars and had to resort to blackberry ones. After 16 kids, and dwindling supplies, I decided to send Curt to the local dairy (convenience store) for lollies (candy). Alas, no more kids arrived, wouldn't you know it. But still, we had more trick-or-treaters here than we had in the US in the last 5 years!

And I'm proud to say that I took the lollies to work the next day to give to student helpers so I wouldn't eat them all myself. (But I did manage to eat a few.)

GUY FAWKES DAY -
I find this holiday quite confusing. Here's what I've learned:
Back in England in 1605, Guy Fawkes and 12 other guys tried to blow up Parliament, which including killing the King and all the Lords. They didn't like the current government because they were Catholics and the government was anti-Catholic. Or something like that. It was supposed to be the beginning of a mass Catholic uprising in England.

Instead, on November 5 Guy Fawkes got caught red-handed with 36 barrels of gunpowder in the basement of the Parliament building. He was arrested and later executed.

So every year on November 5, England celebrates the failed gunpowder plot ... by lighting fireworks, bonfires, and effigies of either Guy Fawkes or the Pope(!).

Here's a few problems I have with this holiday:
1. It's not very clear if the holiday is to celebrate the plotters, or to celebrate the government who thwarted the plot. Some of the English have been known to wonder, in a tongue in cheek kind of way, whether they are celebrating Fawkes' execution or honoring his attempt to do away with the government.

2. By naming the holiday after the "bad guy" they have immortalized his name. It's a little like naming 9/11 Osama Bin Laden Day.

3. Speaking of names, it's crazy that Guy Fawkes got the holiday named after him, because he wasn't even the leader of the group! He was just the one who was caught first. The ringleader probably thought it was pretty unfair that the holiday wasn't named after him, but was named after one of his underlings instead. Of course, he was dead by then, but still.

4. Why blow things up when celebrating that you didn't get blown up? It lacks logic. It's like celebrating the day you almost died from e coli by going out and eating undercooked hamburger. I don't get it.

5. This is New Zealand. Nobody tried to blow up our Parliament in 1605. We didn't have a Paliament in 1605. This place was inhabited solely by Maoris in 1605. Australia doesn't celebrate Guy Fawkes Day. Why does NZ?

6. Mostly, this holiday appears to be an excuse to set off lots of fireworks - accidentally starting fires, causing injuries, and scaring animals. This year, the city council debated whether to ban private fireworks because the firefighters and police and hospitals are so overworked that night. This did NOT turn out to be a very popular idea!

So the fireworks continue. That's OK, I guess.
I now know a little more about Guy Fawkes. That's fine.
And I didn't singlehandedly eat bags and bags of M&Ms and Hersheys and Reeses and Almond Joys ....
That's probably good, too.

Megan