Celebrating a Milestone Birthday and a Spooky Halloween With Old Friends

For most of you, the start of the holiday season is in December. If you’re from the States, it probably starts in November around Thanksgiving. But if you’re horror enthusiasts like we are, then the holiday season starts in October to celebrate Halloween.

This year was extra special because my husband celebrated the BIG 4-0 a day before the spooktacular holiday. It’s also the first time we’ve invited more than one person to our home since the pandemic started in 2019.

Since the rate of infection has decreased significantly in Argentina, we decided to throw caution to the wind and open our doors.

So, in mid-October, we invited two dear friends over for an early Halloween/birthday celebration. Although Zach has met up with our friend, Melisa, a few times over the last two years, this was my first time seeing her and her boyfriend, Javier, since 2019.

Then we had our friend Franco over for the hub’s 40^th birthday and had a blast!

In fact, we had so much fun that Franco graced us with his presence the following day.

As usual, the celebration was full of homemade Halloween themed food, treats and store-bought candies.

We actually made this pizza a couple of days before Halloween. We used food coloring to make the cheese bright orange. Before you ask: It's tough finding shredded cheddar cheese in Argentina. Unfortunately, the spooky shaped cheese melted into unrecognizable blobs in the oven, so we couldn't use this idea for Halloween.

BBQ chicken with Jack O' Lantern bread

We were pleasantly surprised that the candy stores here in Cordoba, Argentina, had more Halloween themed candies than last year.

Don't buy these! They have regular candy inside instead of Halloween candy.

Skull candies!

Gummy brain candies!

Eyeball candies

We made witch hats out of Rice Krispy Treats. On the right was our attempt to make the book from Hocus Pocus. We'll do better next year. I promise.

We ordered some powdered donuts, placed vampire teeth in the middle and glazed them with fake blood.

We used a Sharpie to draw the face on the glass. Then we made a float using Sunkist (Fanta works too) and vanilla ice cream.

Over the last ten years, we’ve made it a habit of buying new masks to celebrate Halloween. The masks from the previous year were added to our Halloween tree.

This year, we wore the masks seen in last year’s hit South Korean drama “Squid Game.” If you haven’t seen that show, I strongly recommend it.

Unfortunately, there was one Halloween tradition that we’ve only been able to do once over the last ten years.

Carving a Jack O’ Lantern!

Finding a decent pumpkin in Argentina during this time of year is tough. So, we came up with a wacky idea. Instead of carving pumpkins, we decided to carve peppers. Now, let me be honest, the carvings you’re about to see didn’t happen on Halloween. We actually did these on November 9^th.

If you're thinking, "Oh geez! That will never work," check this out!

Once we were done with our pepper Jack O’ Lanterns, we chopped them up and used them to make a veggie lasagna.

I don't even like vegetables, but it was really tasty.

So, the takeaway here is that if you’re living abroad and don’t have what you need for Halloween, compromise!

Now, before I end this entry, I want to share my Halloween movie list for 2022. Many of them were new to us, but there were a few horror favorites from previous years. Hopefully, you’ll find one or two that you haven’t seen.

Enjoy!

1. Rob Zombie’s 31 – This one was a surprise hit!
2. Barbarian – It was alright, but you’re going to hate Justin Long’s character so much!
3. Insidious Chapter 3 – Better the second time around!
4. Insidious The Lost Key – Also better the second time around!
5. Halloween 2018 – Decent!
6. Halloween Kills – It was alright!
7. Halloween Ends – It sucked! Don’t waste your time!
8. Jeepers Creepers Reborn – Seriously! WTF! Horrible!
9. Hocus Pocus 2 – Predictable but entertaining.
10. Old People – Scary enough to make you respect your elders.
11. Hush – You’ll never want to live in the woods… like ever!
12. The Haunted Mansion – Great for kids. Kinda boring for adults.
13. Hellraiser 2022 – I only saw this because of Jamie Clayton, but the movie was boring AF!
14. The Curse of Bridge Hollow – This was a surprisingly cool movie!
15. The Visitor – Meh.
16. When a Stranger Calls Back – The sequel to the classic When a Stranger Calls (Not the reboot)
17. All Hallows’ Eve 2 – Some scenes are scary.
18. Spirit Halloween – A haunted party store? Yes please!
19. The Inhabitant – It was okay.
20. Rise of the Zombies – Another surprising good horror flick. A bit low budget, but decent.
21. Terrifier – Low budget but scary and gory. Don’t watch if you’re afraid of clowns.
22. Terrifier 2 – Not as great as the first one but scary and gory enough.
23. Friday the 13^th Jason Lives – A classic.
24. Hostile – It was supposed to be Mad Max meets Resident Evil, but it was a disappointment.
25. The Accursed – Scary enough for Halloween.
26. The Scariest Story Ever – A Mickey Mouse Halloween Spooktacular – Short but okay.
27. Disney’s Trick or Treat – It was short but entertaining.
28. The School for Good and Evil – Surprisingly good. I hope they do a part 2.
29. Aftershock – You’ll never want to travel abroad again.