What would you pay?!?!?!

For a little piece of the holidays?!?!? Apparently we will pay or do just about anything...

What is fall, the start of the holiday season, without pumpkins, Halloween costumes, dreams of turkey and stuffing and family gatherings?!?!?

"Fall" here is the start of summer and it is currently a balmy 75 degrees -- which not going to lie, is quite easy to get used to. And if we miss the sight of falling, turning leaves we can simply go inside and look at all of our house plants that I cannot for the life of me keep alive. (This is definitely an art form that I have not conquered or have any patience for.)

Holiday weather is the easy part to give up (and I can only say this now that is it nice again)...but what about everything else? Well, I recently got it in my head that I could not live without pumpkins. And once I got this in my head, I was obsessed. I went from store to store, covered it all from the natural organic place (new find!), the high-end specialy store that only seems to sell German things, to the really weird sort of dingy place that always has American favorites like grits and maple syrup, even the local market as a last ditch effort. I was even willing to settle for the disgusting, pre-seasoned, mushy stuff in the can -- anything to give me that feeling of the holidays that only orange baked goods would do. I was desperate.

I swear Guatemala can grow anything. I put a tomato in some dirt in a pot and now I have the cutest little tomato plant growing. Well, that is until I kill it, but seriously, it is incredible. So why no pumpkins?!?!? They have other strange squashes that are actually very, very good, but sadly, no pumpkins or anything even remotely close.

But wait, the miracle of all miracles happened! Our grocery store, that happens to be owned by Wal-Mart, imported the real deal for desperate foreigners just like myself. Real, round, perfectly orange, cute little stemmed pumpkins for sale, just for me! Perfect, perfect, PERFECT!

Perfect until we saw how much we paid for it. Yes, I admit it, we totally paid $25 dollars for a pretty small pumpkin. But at this point, it is not just a pumpkin, it now has morphed into something totally out of control because I spent so much time obsessing over this thing. It is now a sign of the holidays, a piece of home, the start of the great season ahead of giving and appreciating. (This poor pumpkin is going to have a complex by the time I am done with it. Too many expectations are never good for anyone or thing!)

And the most ridiculous part?!?! We found this treasure just in time for Halloween and I could not bring myself to carve it. It seemed too wasteful, too unappreciative! Instead I have grand plans for this poor thing...pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin EVERYTHING!

And even more ridiculous, our madness didn't stop there with the veggie...I haven't even begun to tell you about Halloween! We took more care and interest in our costumes this year than we have ever before. We came up with our idea months out, just to make sure we had enough time to order all the necessary stuff and give enough bumper room in case our magic address was delayed. We didn't even know if there would be a party, but we were all over it, just in case. (This is what happens when violence and torrential down pours keep you inside for too long!) And oddly despite all my desires to control and plan everything, I sort of like the last minute hustle to be creative and come up with a fab costume. But I have to say the time was worth it. Hands down we were the most disgusting costume project I have ever been a part of. And I think I might be emotionally scared for life from looking so gross....but we were definitely pretty awesome!

Here we are....Hall and Oates!

And because our life out here is so funny sometimes, we had to come up with another costume for the Halloween party a week early. One unexpected, but super fabulous, perk of the FS are the local holidays. We get not only our normal US holidays off, but also all of Guatemala's and rarely do they overlap. It is incredible!

Anyway, the day after Halloween is All Saint's Day a big important holiday here and there was a fear that most people would leave for the long weekend...so what do you do?!?!? Throw the party a week early, natch! We were Gilligan's Island with a bunch of our friends and amazingly wore everything we already owned. We only thought ahead for one costume!

Is it a bad sign when you can come up, quite easily mind you, with Halloween costumes straight out of your closet, not only for your self, but for others as well?!?!? Probably.

Lesson learned? I am not sure. We may have totally gone overboard with trying to start the holiday season off right, but I don't think I would have it any other way. Honestly, I will probably do it again in all the posts to come.