All I can say is, it's good to know that "crazy" isn't just something we have here in America .

Just so you guys over there don't get the wrong idea from the papers and the crazy people and start thinking we're a bunch of Harry Potter-reading devil worshippers who rampage through the streets like Jack the Ripper leading a pack of teddy boys, with Venom pounding through our iPods ...

When yer a kid, Halloween means candy. Getting dressed up with your friends, going door to door, and conniving ways to convince people to give you more candy. Eating yourself sick for days. Growing older, and seeing how old you can still get away with it before somebody soaks you with a garden hose.

Later in adolescence & young adulthood, it means a costume party at somebody's house.

In college, it's another excuse to drink beer and meet girls. Other notable college holidays, ie reasons for drinking beer and meeting girls, are days ending in "Y". This one just involves costumes. Might be candy, might not. More likely, jello shots, body shots, and coffee shots. Notable costumes are "pimp 'n' ho", "pirate & wench", "bear & bait", "free mammogram machine", etc...

After college but before "maturity", it's the same as college, but you can drink legally, and you're probably going to a club, and there's probably a costume contest.

When people around here (near Boulder) reach a "mature age", the popular thing to do seems to be to go to this thing called the "exotica erotica ball", where you can see all the people who should always be fully clothed, but they're not. Frankly, I can't think of anything scarier, and when I get that old, I'll move to England where you apparently don't have to live in fear of such a horrible event.

So I figure it's safe to say it's a party like any other party in any Western nation . Drinks, dancing, and debauchery, but with costumes! Sorta like a Renaissance Fair, but everybody does it .

-Sean