Halloween, German style

I'll be honest, I almost forgot about Halloween. There are very few stores that bombarb you with displays of jack-o-lanterns and black cats and those chunks of stretched out cotton balls that are supposed to be cobwebs. In fact, Germany may have America beat on the jump-the-gun Christmas decorations. Seeing as Germany doesn't really have Halloween and definitely doesn't have Thanksgiving, Christmas is really all the department stores have right now. But I had enough poeple asking me questions about Halloween the day before at work, that I did remember to acknowledge its exsistance. It was actully really cute on Friday. I was invited to dinner at my host parents' house and on the way, I had to stop by the post office to mail my ballot (I had already faxed it in so it would count, I just had to back it up with the real thing). I saw a couple of groups of kids dressed as ghosts and witches and goblins and other scary things. In Germany they like the scary costumes, not the recognizable characters costumes that populate US college campuses. So as I was leaving die Post (the post office), a troop of costumed youngsters entered die Post and said 'Süß and something I didn't quite catch because they said it really sing-songy and in unison'. Süß means sweet. So they were giving their targeted trick-or-treatee the option of sweets or I'm assuming, a trick of some sort. I saw the same thing in one of the U-Bahn Station shops. I think that's an adorable idea. And great for these businesses. Maybe this is how trick or treating is always done in big cities but it was the first time I heard of kids going store to store in addition to door to door.