by spooky halloween
Whether you call it Hallowe’en, All Hallow’s Eve, Samhain, Day of the Dead or Kekri, may it be a spine-tingling, fun and safe one. Our heavy heavy rains have finally stopped just now and it might be a dry night for the little ghosts and goblins.
If you fancy a visit through my past Hallowee’en posts to put you in the spirit, click here. As you will notice, the image above is a reworking of a favourite one used before.
October 31, 2014 in Culture, Current Events, Folk Legends & Myths by Marja-Leena
Prost with hot cocoa and fun spookiness. Clouds are covering the moon here now, but last night it looked nice and eerie. Happy Halloween, dear Marja-Leena!
Thanks, dear R. It’s been quite the evening in our neighbourhood for there have been constant fireworks all evening here and there, as if in competition. Normally there are only two to three families doing it. It is now almost ten in the evening and they are still going strong, popping and whistling and making the air very sharply smoky. So very beautiful but oh so noisy, reminding us of a battlefield such as in a war movie we watched last night. Pity our friends’ poor dogs shivering in fear and wetting carpets.
We’ve had the most beautiful, serene bright weather here, a really magical autumn just now. Saw a few kids dressed up in town in the afternoon, and there’s more made of it than there used to be, but it’s still today – Toussaint – that’s the bigger festival, fine if you like cemeteries and chrysanthums, we take it easy!
Lucy, sounds lovely there! It’s interesting how differently this night or day is practiced in other cultures. Our parents, as new immigrants, were quite horrified that children would go begging door to door and would not let us join for the first few years until they became accustomed to the practise.
Now that we have no children at home, not even the grandkids, we just turn out the lights and stay in the back of the house – such curmudgeons we are! The young adults often have parties and I imagine some of the fireworks are part of some house parties, being a Friday night this year.
I don’t understand this trick or treating at all. My memories of Hallow’een go back to my childhood in the Scottish countryside where we would carve lanterns out of turnips, and attend parties given by the local community – usually in some large warm farm kitchen – and there play messy games like grasping the treacle spread drop scone with only our mouth (it was suspended from the pulley drying rack) or forking apples (apples bobbing in a tin bath of water and we would stand over, with a fork in our teeth – then dropped to spear an apple). My father would walk me there and walk me back, and we would talk in a companionable way of days gone by and those who had died. None of these ghosties or grabbings – and dressing down rather than up. But then I’m just an old curmudgeon now!
Olga, I had been led to understand that the trick or treat custom came from England to North America but I suppose it had its variables in different parts of the UK. Home and community parties here would do the apple bobbing game too. I think the excessive costumes seen these days are all part of the commercialism prevalent today, including the awful sweets (which we refuse to buy and give out). As a kid, I just got an old sheet with holes cut out for the eyes and an old broom, and we had fun going around with the neighbourhood kids, just two or three blocks. Curmudgeon, that I am too!
We don’t decorate the way we used to years ago when we had a house on a street that had lots of kids. These past couple of decades we’ve never seen children dressed up and coming by for their treats – especially hard in an apartment building.
What I remember about the beginnings is that it’s related to Samhain – the time of the year between the equinox and the solstice when it was time to batten down for the coming winter. The treat part was much concerned about propitiating the fairies and departed spirits.
The commercialization is all very tiresome.
Susan, we were the same, and now that there are not as many kids coming by here anymore either we don’t bother. We’ve noticed that they like to go up to the townhouse complex where they can pick up more goodies in a shorter time!
I think the old traditions are being forgotten, overpowered as they are by commercialization. I find that sad.