MY WORLD - Halloween in Waterloo

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Since 3 years I go to the Waterloo city park to take pictures of the Halloween festival and I noticed, that each year there are more and more people coming.

This was my world on Halloween !




more and more people



more and more decoration



























and more and more people and children in costumes.

and if you want here are more

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In the evening for the first time in my life I was invited to a Halloween party, given by my classmate and friend Christiane and her daughter. It was absolutely great !





Beautiful and scary decoration



the two of us



lots of fun !



a delicious meal, a soup made with carrots, potatoes and curry, followed by special Belgian grilled sausages and pumpkin puree



and these absolutely gorgeous (and delicious) cakes, baked and decorated by her daughter.
I tried them all !

FUN MONDAY - ABOUT HALLOWEEN

Our host for this week Sayre gave us this assignment :

Tell us about your favorite Halloween as a kid (pictures, if you have them!), and show us your costume for this year. If you're not dressing up, show us a picture of a pumpkin carving that really tickled your fancy or how you decorated your house.

more participants here at Sayre

I had to modify this assignment a little because :

I have never celebrated Halloween until I started blogging in 2006 ! When my son was little nobody did it and I think I hadn't even heard of it.

When I saw all these wonderful costumes and decorations full of phantasy and creativity on especially American blogs, I started to look around and noticed that Halloween had started in Belgium too !

My town Waterloo since a few years organizes a Halloween party for the children in the city park and all the American citizens living in Waterloo started to show to the Waterloo people how to celebrate Halloween.

There is a pumpkin competition, a witch danse and a lot more. So now each year I go there to have a look and take some pictures. The real party starts when it gets dark but in the afternoon there are also activities and for photography daylight is of course better.




The Waterloo city parc, people start arriving



Isn't that an adorable little pumpkin ?

Rehearsal for the witch dance






Dad watches






not really a witch !



Visit on the graveyard, how sad !



A dragon too is invited




A brave dad shows how it works !



Two witches together ? Not a good sign !






A Halloween butterfly



and a little devil !



another pumpkin

WATERLOO CELEBRATES HALLOWEEN

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In Belgium Halloween is not celebrated. But since a few years you can see some decorations in the shops. But my town Waterloo is an exception because one quarter of the current registered population are non-Belgian, most of whom work for institutions in Brussels, the capital of the European Union. Waterloo is home to St. John's International School, one of the largest and oldest international schools in Belgium. The European headquarters of MasterCard International is also located in Waterloo. Therefore we have a lot of Americans and British people living here. And they brought Halloween to Waterloo. Since 3 years the city organizes a Halloween party in the Waterloo park.

To make the foreign people feeling home, they even organized a "Trick and Treat" tour for the children. The Americans and other english speaking nationalities get a map indicating the streets and houses where children are welcome for "Trick and Treat". Just like in their countries.

This had been created because the poor Belgians couldn't understand when suddenly disguised children where standing at their doors and screaming "Trick or Treat". So families can give their addresses and are then put on a list where children are welcomed for this use in order not to create heard attacks for the Belgian population.

Here is a little video of the party, where the children are waiting for a "Witch Danse" and some pictures to show you how they celebrate. I took the pictures on saturday.