Listen to “Ep. 2 Our Favorite Halloween Tradition” on Spreaker.

I have very visceral memories of running around on Halloween with my sister — like 2 mad escapees — in our cookie-cutter, suburban neighborhood in New Jersey. For a long time, we had matching costumes and for even longer we had matching Halloween candy pails. Thanks to our parents, who usually – and with no intention – went bigger than any parent I knew, while everyone else was collecting candy in a normal bucket or pillow case, sis and I were sporting around the Cadillac of Halloween Candy Pails. The extra large plastic pumpkin pail was the length of our torso and could carry our weight in candy, and when they came down from the attic every year, it was the signal, the opening bell, of Halloween.

Knowing this might help you understand the sadness that followed the theft of our first family tradition with my own family, the Halloween Bucket. To many, it would seem like a silly once-a-year accessory, but that’s what’s funny about tradition, right? The smallest of things to some can be the biggest of traditions to others.

That tin bucket wasn’t a planned tradition; it was a fundraiser at CMS our first year. Our daughter was weeks old and we knew we wouldn’t actually use it to trick or treat with but we brought it with us to school one weekend and photographed her in it. The second year we thought Wouldn’t it be funny to take another picture and see how much she’s grown?

… and the rest is history.

Somewhere within the first 3 years of living abroad, that tradition was born into our family. It became a marker of time, a way to remind us how quickly time is passing.

A tradition is really just another word for “the way things have always been done” which if you think about it, doesn’t make it too different from a routine but it’s the memories and sentiment we attach to it that make them irreplaceable. For those of you that live abroad or who have ever moved away from family, you’ll know that of all the challenges of moving, maybe the greatest, is replacing a family tradition. They are a double edged sword; the first thing to slice you open, exposing how much you actually miss home, but they can also be the first thing that will make you feel like you found a new one.