Halloween 2010

Our office had been planning a giant Halloween extravaganza since the middle of September and it was a lot of fun but I do have to say I am SO GLAD it is over. Dustee ordered decorations and around the middle of last week we started putting the office together. We had spider webs on the desks and ceiling, skulls on anything that would stand still, bloody hand prints on the frig, and we blacked out our walls. Dustee, Shkurte, and I did almost everything ourselves seeing no one wanted to help out. It reminded me of the Little Red Hen children’s story. Everyone wanted to be at the party, eat all our yummy food, and enjoy all our decor but NO ONE wanted to help. Oh well, I guess that’s the way it goes and either way everyone had a good time so it was worth it.

Anyways, back to the details… We finished decorating on Friday so Saturday night we started food preparations and cooking. Another girl in another office was making the main course of a bean/chicken stew which was AWESOME. Dustee, Shkurte and I stayed up at the office Saturday night past 10 o’clock baking cookies and brownies and decorating them. We finished decorating the cookies and also made the deviled eggs Sunday morning. Sunday afternoon was used to rearrange the office and set up all the food stations and actually set up the party. Don’t forget we are also working in between all this. Needless to say we were so exhausted I think I appreciate my good size kitchen and loads of counter space even more now after cooking and baking all on a corner of a desk. LOL Hey you gotta love Iraq .

Around 7:15 the party took off and it was a big hit. Everyone filtered in and we had a good time visiting and eating some home cooked food with friends. The main theme was football. Originally we were all going to be the Dallas Cowboys but then we changed and so everyone could be whatever team they preferred. We had Saints, Cowboys, Texans, old Oilers, a college from Michigan , and a few others. Some declined the football theme saying it wasn’t scary or very Halloweeny and chose to actually dress up. My trailer mate was I guess a psychotic/schizophrenic woman and boy did she look the part. When she walked in we all just died with laughter. Her hair was so frizzy and teased it looked like she had been electrocuted! LOL One of my other friends dressed in the traditional Arab dress and it was really funny. He looked just like the guys who stamp our passports in Dubai …Ray Bans and all. He was probably the biggest hit when it came to “costumes”.

Once the main crowd was there and we had made a dent in all the food we headed outside to play a couple games. It is hard to find stuff that goes well with all the rocks that cover the ground and that aren’t so little kid-ish so we decided on mummy wrap and bobbing for apples. Mummy wrapping was first. Each team was a pair and one person was the wrapper and the other was the wrappee. It was really hard because our toilet paper kept breaking and the wrappers were getting VERY dizzy. LOL It was a lot of fun and kept everyone in stitches.

Our other game was bobbing for apples and only 4 people played this game. Jeff and Bujar went first and Jeff won by a long shot. I don’t have a clue how he got so many apples so fast. After that everyone bullied me into playing against David. David won and I was only able to grab 1 apple but either way it was a good time.

After picking up our game mess we headed back into the office to visit and snack a bit more. By 9:30 everyone was helping rip down all our hard work and clean up the food. I am so glad that everyone helped clean up and it sort of added to the fun of the party because I sure wasn’t looking forward to being left with just 2 other people to do it ourselves. Overall our party was a HUGE success and everyone bragged on us that it is the best party they have been to in Iraq to date.