Happy Halloween. Today is a fun packed day for American kids all over the United States. Trick or treating, candy, costumes, parties, parades...its just fun. I think Halloween has become one of my favorite American holidays, because it gives you an excuse to dress up and just be silly. I remember from a young age trying to explain to my father that kids dress up for school and we have parties in school because of this holiday. He just looking at me and saying, 'OK,' because he didn't know it was important. They were thinking, how could going to school dressed like a punk rocker be good?Halloween was just something my parents were never really into, especially the part about random kids coming to your door and expecting candy. My parents just thought and still think it's strange. But now that they've been here a lifetime, they've come to accept it and are now into the Halloween antics because of their own grandchildren.
In Italy, Halloween is slowly becoming popular. They really don't celebrate it because its become more of a popularized day here in the states. The closest holiday to Halloween for the Italians is 'carnivale,' which I think is a bit more elaborate. So, the meshing of holidays as a first generation Italian kid was never easy and trying to explain to my parents why wearing a punk rocker costume to school was important. The correlation and trying to relate the cultural differences was always a challenge. Another important story to the building blocks of growing up Italian-American.
