halloween then

halloween is not really a Filipino tradition. the event just caught up in the last ten years or so, manufactured by malls and consumerist products. however, back when i was still living in angeles city in a village full of expats (since we were near clark air base), my october 31 was all about halloween. i had two or three neighbors who'd put up ghouls and ghosts in their yards and would invite me and my yaya at their houses.

what i looked forward to during those times were preparing for a costume and getting free sweets. i'd usually end up dressing as a fairy since most of the stuff i can find in the baul were my sister's gowns for school programs back when she was studying in ateneo de davao grade school.

after every invitation, with me wearing my sister's ten year old gown holding up a star-tipped barbecue stick or jeans with an old robin (as in batman and robin) shirt of my kuya, i'd hop, skip, jump home carrying a few bags of candy. there was the usual chocolate fare of that coconut chocolate thing which name i forget, small bars of snickers and mars and baby ruth, some chupa-chups, mint candies and my favorite -- candy corn.

so it felt strange that when i share halloween stories with friends and i get all wistful about candy corn... they don't seem to know what it is. it can get to be frustrating when i'm so terrible with describing it. yellow-tipped orange conical thing a little bigger than a tic-tac and very sweet. how else can you describe it? so to those guys i have shared those pampanga halloween stories to... here's a photo of candy corn. :)