Marco and I visited SoLow a few times this month to look for Halloween supplies. The name of the store refers to their prices: they are, well, “so low”. But the best time to visit is in late September and in October, as they always have a good selection for Halloween costumes and decorations.
This evil clown definitely looks like he jumped right out of the set of Stephen King’s It…
Or the undead dog. Oddly enough, this was the only thing a little kid wanted to go near. She was deathly afraid of the other decorations that made noise and moved around, but nope. This one she just HAD to pet. Briefly…
Masks for every occasion.
Or a happy go lucky skeleton, if that is what you are looking for.
I’ve been pleased with how Halloween has grown as a holiday over here. It is still not nearly as popular as in the States, but there are more parties and opportunities for kids to get candy if they know where to go.
I think this year I might resurrect the blue fairy costume again. With a few pieces I bought this year from SoLow, of course!
Life in the Hague 
Here, apart from kid friendly stores, the stress seems to be on sexy costumes. Great for adult only parties, visually stunning for TV, but perhaps the wrong message is being sent.
Luckily, there is still room for kids and free candy.
Yeah — in the US especially you have “sexy nurse” and “sexy cop” type costumes. There’s a little of that here but not that much. So far!
There is a lot of that here. I certainly don’t mind it for adult parties….but I worry about sending the wrong message to younger people.
It’s been interesting to see the tradition grow over here. I remember when almost no one knew what it was. It wasn’t so smart of me to travel from Haarlem to Rotterdam in costume by train back then.
Heh. Probably not, no. These days you just have to avoid wearing a clown mask in public…
Yeah 🙂 Good point. Is that clown thing still going on? I don’t see much about it in the news these days. At the time I thought it would make an amazing fiction story if it really was something paranormal going on (like in IT) but the news just reported it like pranksters.
I saw a video (probably on NOS 1) about a few folks who were spooked by clowns. 1 clown walked towards them, and they tried to flee backwards. Unfortunately two more clowns were sneaking up right behind them and they were spooked again… but not sure if it was in NL or not. Crazy. 😉
It really does sound like the plot of a horror movie.