Young and old will put on their spookiest costumes and hit the streets to trick or-treat tonight. Reporter Pippa Brown finds out what Rotorua people have planned for Halloween.
THE NIGHT of Halloween is traditionally a time when imaginations run riot.
To most it means dressing up to go trick-or-treating . . . and when ghosts and supernatural beings go bump in the night.
Some people use it as an excuse to dress up and party and others to fill the lolly jar, but for 36-year-old Rotorua woman Melanie Boeck it's "a special time."
"I'm a definite believer in celebrating it. A lot of people think it's commercialised and silly. It may seem quite frivolous, but I've been enjoying Halloween since I've been able to walk."
The ancient festival of Halloween originated in Ireland, when October 31 marked the end of the year and the Samhain festival, as it was known, celebrated the summer harvest and preparing for a long cold winter - a time associated with death.
The celebrations signified the blurred lines between the land of the living and dead, opening the way for ghosts to return searching for living bodies to possess. Parading noisily through the neighbourhood in ghoulish costumes was the Celtic way of frightening disembodied spirits away.
But Melanie, who is originally from Canada, says Halloween doesn't seem like a cultural event.
"To me it means family time - dressing up, and mum putting face paint on me, and it's just as important and special as Christmas. "Now I'm away from my family and friends I embrace these times-I have such happy memories."
In Canada the festival is a huge celebration and tied in with Thanksgiving in November.
Clockwise from bottom right: Jade McKenzie, 5; Pius Ersando, 18; Melanie
Boeck, Rebecca Henwood. Photo/Ben Fraser
"I miss it because this time of the year is gorgeous - the seasonal colour and pumpkin patches are beautiful, and the pumpkins are big, round and bright orange.
"Every year we'd go to the country, pick apples to store in our cold cellar and get pumpkins, two for display and mum or dad would cut off the top of the third one, scoop out the gooey part, then mum would roast the seeds with chestnuts and my brother and I would help dad make a Jack O'Lantern."
It was family bonding time and Melanie feels nostalgic for it.
Her father would take them trick-or treating, while her mother would stay at home, dress up in a scary costume and decorate the house with pumpkins.
"I'm quite homesick because my friends are posting pictures of their kids sitting in a pumpkin patch on Facebook."
This year Melanie and her 5-year old son Michael are dressing up and plan to go out trick or-treating with friends, meeting up later to celebrate Halloween.
"The kids will be together with a sense of community and a home away from home. "I'm so excited to be sharing it with my friends and my son's classmates who are Kiwi through and through."
Tradition and custom is also the reason Nikolasa Biasiny-Tule and her family take part in the celebration.
Mixing her Puerto Rican and Dutch heritage with husband Potaua's Maori culture, the family will dress up and take their extended whanau of 20 trick-or-treating through Rotorua.
Tomorrow they will visit the local marae for more celebrations.
Nikolasa says the Latin American festival Dia de Muertos, Day of the Dead, is celebrated at the same time.
"We like to remind the kids it's a time of the year to remember our ancestors and the ones we have lost and to celebrate their lives. "My husband likes to visit our neighbours and saying hello to everyone. Any reason to get dressed up and have fun should be celebrated and costumes make it infinitely more fun."
COSTUME hire places around Rotorua have had a busy week, with kids of all ages getting in the Halloween spirit.
Manager of AJ's Emporium Sheryl Davy says Halloween costuming has been going out the door so fast she has to keep topping the shelves up.
The store has doubled the amount of stock this year and is staying open later.
"It's definitely bigger this year and there will be lots of parties going on."
In a shop full of noise and light activated props the lights don't need to go out for the hair on the back of your neck to rise-when the party gets loud or the lights turn off the bodiless ghost spins, its eyes flashing, chins rattle, and the coffin lid creaks and opens.
Making your own scar with liquid latex is popular but not everything is scary. Sheryl says some people are doing the pirate thing, or wearing less ghoulish fairy wings.
It's the same down the road. Among the skeletons, spiders, fake blood, dismembered hands, axes, sickles and chains in the Not Just $2 store there's all sorts of scary stuff. A sign states 'Warning. The dead are rising-seek refuge'.
Owner Mukul Patel says this year's sales have been very good.
Knowing Halloween falls on a Saturday this year he stocked up expecting sales to be up.
"Dracula is a favourite and vampire and zombie costume are always popular."
Witches come in all sorts of colours -black, pink and white-there's even a sexy one and a creepy schoolgirl. All that's needed is a broom as an accessory.
He says more adults are buying because it's a good excuse to party.
Mukul is planning to put chocolate and lollies on the counter today to get his customers in the mood.
"People want a reason to party and a reason to spend. It's going to be crazy busy here as people do last minute shopping."
Partying hard with friends and family tonight is what Tashita Tamai and her friends and family plan to do. They have built a big bonfire and dressed their paddock with graves, coffins, dungeons and a jail. A caravan exhibits a bed of bride and groom skulls, squashed heads and lots of spiders. A large TV screen and a projector has been set up to watch the finals of the Rugby World Cup game tomorrow morning.
"It's going to be an all-nighter- I've been dressing up for years, but the rugby makes it even better," she says.
The one night of the year the spirits can come out is also an excuse to party for some students at the Sir George Seymour New Zealand School of Tourism.
Antoan Skipper, 18, says he's been watching heaps of Halloween movies and getting into the spirit. So far he's collected a big tube of blood and weird tattoos.
"It's likely to be some sort of bloody creature-the gorier the better-I'm going to make it extreme."
Fellow student Shaquilla McLean, 17, is looking for two big pointed front teeth and some blood. She's dressing up as a vampire. Her friend, Lashaay Grey, 17, is doing a pretty take on gory, dressing up as a macabre princess.
Celebrating Halloween safely is again the big message from police this year, as families get ready to trick or treat around Rotorua.
On their website, police are advising the spookiest night of the year doesn't have to be the scariest for youngsters or their neighbours.
They are encouraging parents, caregivers and children to celebrate Halloween safely by ensuring children always go trick-or treating with an adult, stay in areas that are well lit and only visit houses where they know the residents, and to be careful not to scare elderly people.
Police say residents don't have to respond to knocks on the door on Halloween.
If there are any problems or incidents outside your house and you are concerned, ring police for advice or assistance. Householders that don't want to be bothered can download and print 'Trick or Treaters Welcome' or 'No Trick or Treaters Please' posters from the police website to put up on a window or the front door. Go to www.police.govt.nz
