Going Back Home For Halloween

Halloween was never famous here in the Philippines until recently.  Back in my younger years, October 31 to November 2 were those days when we visited our dearly departed's graves - sort of like family reunions, only we were camping out in cemeteries.  I've never dressed up for Halloween, Trick or Treating and the like.  The closest I got were halloween block parties organized by friends when I was a teenager.  But it was never close to how it is now.

My account in Sykes was very good at organizing Halloween parties for kids.  It all started with a small group of kids (I was still single then) who dressed up and went around for candies.  Today it has grown to over 100 kids signed up from our account alone.  Last year's was crazy - almost all of the accounts in our building had it on the same day.  Suffice it to say, it was a big holiday!  No one worked until all of the kids were driven back to their houses.  We were slackers for a day! 

I shared with you on an earlier post that, this year, I transferred to a new company.  Because of the car wreck that our dear ole Rubi got into, we really thought Halloween and Christmas events were cancelled for the year.  But through blessings and settlements, we got a rental car (popularly known as Gray Car in our house).   So I missed Halloween in HP but the sentimental in me thought "Didn't you want to go back home and spend it at Sykes?"

So I was excited.  I was eagerly anticipating seeing the familiar cheerful faces.  There were a lot of friends I have not seen after my last day.  How would it feel?

....

Sure enough, I had a fuzzy feeling going back "home".  It was nice to be back, seeing that old basement where we always park... that refuge on sleepless lunch break night.  

I did not see all the familiar faces though. Most of them have moved on or are on vacation (READ: Floating status) because of the continuing economic downfall of America.  I don't know if most of the jobs are slowly transferred back or they just discovered that there are places with cheaper labor than the Philippines.

Stolen from Richard Lester Omana's Facebook album.

There was a hint of sadness.  I missed a lot of people.  I longed to see them but they were not there.  Sure there were teammates left, HR friends who still have that welcoming smile on their faces, Tag's team mates and friends and great techs around who still said hello.  I miss Ryza, Ms. Jen, my team and a lot of people that I may not get to mention.  But hey, c'est la vie!  They moved on for something better (I hope!).  This party is for our kids anyway... it is not for me. :)

Thank you guys for that wonderful afternoon!  My kids loved them - they got spooked (one more blog about Trick or Treat soon).  Nemo loved scaring Portia... Portia, well, she loved shrieking and she loved the candies.