During this Halloween, I enjoyed participating in many traditions. Halloween was supposed to be on Wednesday, October 31st, but I only did half of the Halloween activities then due to the effects of Hurricane Sandy. The day  before Halloween, I made my costume for school, Katniss Everdeen, the girl on fire, by painting my black clothes red, orange, and yellow to look like fire. The next day, i came to school wearing my costume. About a week earlier, we decorated pumpkins which would be judged on this day. My advisory's pumpkin was made to look like a doctor. We also had a costume contest on Wednesday, and I entered in the home made category. I won third place. On Saturday, I trick or treated. First, I dressed in my costume, then I went over to my friends house and at six o'clock, we started going to houses on the street, and at each house we got candy. Some houses gave "fun size" candies and one gave me a giant chocolate bar. At eight o'clock, we went back to our houses, and Halloween was over until next year.
Here are some pictures of Halloween this year:

Halloween is both similar and different to Dia de los Muertos. In both holidays, people decorate their houses and stores for the holiday, although in Dia de los Muertos, stores are decorated with flowers and fruits, not pumkins, skeletons, and witches like in Halloween. Also, they both have something to do with the dead, but in Mexico, people honor the dead by making altars and going to cemeteries while people who celebrate Halloween try to scare people with stories or costumes of the dead. Although Halloween and Dia de los Muertos start on the same day, October 31st, Dia de los muertos lasts until November second. In both holidays, bakeries sell special treats for the upcoming holiday. The stores in Mexico sell pan de muerto, and the stores in the United States sell pumpkin flavored treats and cookies with symbols of Halloween on them. Also, people in Mexico are starting to incorporate some Halloween customs into their Day of the Dead. For example, some children enter costume contests in their schools or go trick or treating. In all, although Halloween and Dia de los Muertos are different holidays in different countries, they still share some of the same traditions.