Halloween Down Under: Where the Ghosts Wear Sunscreen

A LaughParty comic take.

Comic take, not a news report. Every event, household and 'local tradition' below is invented for fun.

Halloween in the Southern Hemisphere arrives in spring, which means the spookiest thing on the night isn't a haunted house. It's the weather forecast. While other parts of the world enjoy crisp autumn air and cozy sweaters, our imaginary trick-or-treaters are standing on a porch at 6:45 pm in full sunlight, slowly melting inside a wool-lined werewolf suit.

Picture the scene in the fictional suburb of Gumnut Heights. The sun is still up, glowing like it has nowhere better to be. A small vampire arrives at the door with a cape, plastic fangs and a face the color of a ripe tomato. 'Trick or treat,' he wheezes. 'Also, do you have any water?' This is the only known case of a vampire begging for a garden hose.

The costumes adapt, of course. Ghosts wear a single bedsheet over swimmers. Mummies are wrapped in a modest amount of toilet paper, because anything more would require medical supervision. The skeleton onesie, a worldwide classic, has been replaced by a skeleton singlet and a sun hat. It's still scary, but mostly because it's wearing socks with sandals.

Then there's the candy problem. Chocolate does not enjoy a warm evening. By the third house, every trick-or-treat bag holds one large, mysterious brown lump, like a very sad meteorite. Children in Gumnut Heights are said to plan routes by which neighbors have air conditioning and a fridge policy. The house with the freezer full of ice blocks is considered the Buckingham Palace of the street.

Meanwhile, the decorations face stiff competition from the local wildlife. A homeowner carefully places a fake spider the size of a dinner plate on the porch, and a real one the size of a coaster looks at it and thinks, 'Amateur.' A plastic bat dangles from the awning, and the actual possum on the fence nods politely, as if to say, 'Nice try, mate. I do this professionally.' Nobody needs a fog machine when a magpie is already circling with the confidence of a tiny, feathered landlord.

The great debate each year is whether Halloween should even be in October. Some argue it should be moved to a cooler night. Others point out that ghosts are famously flexible about scheduling, and the real horror is carrying a pumpkin through the humidity. Meanwhile, the pumpkin sits on the step slowly sinking into a sad, grinning puddle, which is honestly the most realistic haunted decoration of all.

By 8 pm the sun finally gives up, the children are sticky and triumphant, and the street is full of cheerful monsters with sunburned noses. Somewhere a witch is eating a melted chocolate bar with a spoon, and nobody has ever looked happier. It may not be the traditional version of the holiday, but it's hard to beat a night where the scariest thing is a dropped ice cream and the broomstick has a built-in drink holder.

Inspired by How we do Halloween down here in Australia.