Almost Halloween...

My Halloween Cupcake from Friday Brunch at the Lime Tree Cafe.

As Halloween gets closer and closer slowly we are beginning to see Halloween 'things' pop up all over Dubai. It always surprises me and makes me so happy! For anyone who knows me, I LOVE all holidays, and really the crescendo of my holiday year begins with Halloween, peaks at Christmas and then tapers off by Easter. My love of holidays is exhibited through excessive amounts of decorations (some, arguably tacky, or so says Jared), and the sending of cards to everyone and their brother for every holiday (really, they do make cards for Thanksgiving, St. Patrick's Day, and even April Fool's Day if you look hard enough... and trust me, I know where to look). So, living in the Middle East I was a little anxious that my holiday spirit would be squelched as a result of my minority status. And, to a large extent, it's as if Fall Harvest and Halloween season are non-existent over here. Instead of changing leaves, it's becoming BBQ season, and Diwali (the Indian Festival of Lights) is the most overt holiday atmosphere around. However, in the last week or so I've been seeing Halloween things pop up (Candylicious is now carrying plastic jack-o-lanterns full of candy and festive ghost cookies, Ace Hardware has a whole Halloween aisle complete with pumpkin twinkle lights and Jason masks, and Jared and I were beckoned into a Hallmark shop the other day by the sound of one of those motion sensored vibrating witch heads with the distinctive "whoooooooooo"). We even found semi-normal looking pumpkins that we'll be carving into Jack-o-lanterns next weekend... Even though my 6+ years worth of accumulated fall decorations are in the US in storage, it can STILL be Halloween.... at least in my head... and my apartment with my ugly pumpkins and Halloween M&M's (yup, I was able to find those too, but no candy corn.... I'll take what I can get)...