Halloween

I celebrate Halloween the pagan way ( we actually call it Samhain). We believe it's the time of the year when this world is closest to the spirit world, so we celebrate it by honouring our ancestors and of course, having the usual fun Halloween things like apple bobbing and spooky decorations.

I usually bake an apple pie as a desert, stuff a chicken for dinner with sides like roasted potatoes and beans, and have a pumpkin soup as a starter. The soup is usually served in a roasted pumpkin we eat slices off with the rest of the meal.
I usually also bake cookies to put on my altar to honor my ancestors and to enjoy of course.
 
Windigo said:
I celebrate Halloween the pagan way ( we actually call it Samhain). We believe it's the time of the year when this world is closest to the spirit world, so we celebrate it by honouring our ancestors and of course, having the usual fun Halloween things like apple bobbing and spooky decorations.

I usually bake an apple pie as a desert, stuff a chicken for dinner with sides like roasted potatoes and beans, and have a pumpkin soup as a starter. The soup is usually served in a roasted pumpkin we eat slices off with the rest of the meal.
I usually also bake cookies to put on my altar to honor my ancestors and to enjoy of course.
Click to expand...

Sounds great. The pumpkin tradition - in the UK no-one ever ate pumpkins or carved them that I can recall, if I think back 40 years or so. Maybe even 25 years ago. We didn't have 'squash' either that I can recall other than vegetable marrow (summer squash). I found this quote about the history of the 'jack 'o lantern'. Seems to be the 90's when that tradition caught on here.

Every Halloween, glowing orange faces scowl at you from doorsteps, as the Halloween tradition of carving pumpkins commences. This tradition began in Ireland in response to a popular folktale about a man who carried a carved-out turnip filled with glowing coal with him in the afterlife. Irish immigrants introduced the custom to America, where the round orange pumpkins we use today are readily available, and the ‘Jack-o’-lantern’ was born. Since the 1990s, pumpkin carving for Halloween has become an increasingly popular activity across Britain.
Click to expand...

history-of-the-halloween-pumpkin-plus-recipes-ideas
 
No, we don't really celebrate Halloween. I'm not religious, nor am I particularly spiritual, but I really dislike the commercialisation of Halloween - it seems to be all about fancy dress, sweets and scary movies.....there doesn't seem to be any understanding of the meaning or the origins of the festival. I also despair at the amount of (mostly disposable) plastic Halloween-themed tat that fills the shops - you just know most of it will be thrown away the next day ☹ I suppose you could say the same about Christmas or Easter in terms of commercialisation, but I do feel that most people at least acknowledge the origins, and there is less emphasis on throw-away costumes and decorations.
 
So, I have to ask. Is "pumpkin spice" everything just a Murcan abomination, or is it international?

CD
 
Anybody every watched Hocus Pocus? I changed the music to the song SJP sings, but I'm not sure if I ever got a movie of it with that song. I'll have to look.

 
CraigC said:
Halloween was done for the local kids. We did it up big time.
Click to expand...

Hah, don't let him kid you. It was as much for me and him, as it was for the kids. We always did things up for Christmas real big too until the kid left home, then things got toned down a lot, but not for Halloween! In fact, it kept getting bigger! It had gotten to the point that we started putting things up the first weekend of October and we'd work on it throughout the month to get everything ready.
 
Windigo said:
I celebrate Halloween the pagan way ( we actually call it Samhain). We believe it's the time of the year when this world is closest to the spirit world, so we celebrate it by honouring our ancestors and of course, having the usual fun Halloween things like apple bobbing and spooky decorations.

I usually bake an apple pie as a desert, stuff a chicken for dinner with sides like roasted potatoes and beans, and have a pumpkin soup as a starter. The soup is usually served in a roasted pumpkin we eat slices off with the rest of the meal.
I usually also bake cookies to put on my altar to honor my ancestors and to enjoy of course.
Click to expand...

I celebrate it fairly much the same. The meal itself may vary (chicken, or a roast - but there's usually a homemade pumpkin soup). We honor ancestors, and those we know who may have passed on during the previous year (now that I'm 65 there gets, alas, to be more and more). For me, I rather consider it to be the heralding in of a new year.

This year, I am heading down to a putative garden a couple hours south of here, where a friend is planning on setting up for the fallow winter season, which is often essential for new life to rise up in the spring (at least in temperate climates). He's set up the soil; he will cook the main, and those of us who are coming will bring appropriate (home cooked) side dishes.

Depending where one lives (ie, is there easy and safe access to homes) trick or treating is prevalent. I'm probably too rural to actually see trick or treaters, but the local community center will provide a space for kids and their parents to come and party, a bit warmer indoors.
 
medtran49 said:
It had gotten to the point that we started putting things up the first weekend of October and we'd work on it throughout the month to get everything ready.
Click to expand...
We were like that with Christmas for the longest time - as soon as Halloween was over, we'd deck out the house and get the tree up, usually within the first two or three days of November. One year, we were going to be gone the first week in November, so we got every done the last week in October - neither one of us could face the idea of coming home to an undecorated house mid-November.

Now, we wait until the day after Thanksgiving to start decorating, but by that Sunday, it's all done. Outside, we just do lights, and I no longer get up on the roof a la Clark Griswold, but we decorate the inside, especially our bar area.
 
About 10 days ago, I was in one of our big box hardware stores. Most of the stuff being sold is for Christmas right now. There was a tiny corner for Halloween, and another tiny corner for the US Halloween - Yes, I'm not crazy about over commercialization of any holiday - but folks, this is MONTHS before Christmas!
 
Mountain Cat said:
Yes, I'm not crazy about over commercialization of any holiday - but folks, this is MONTHS before Christmas!
Click to expand...
Haha - you may have missed it, but I posted in one of the Cafe topics, way back in August, a picture of the Christmas section of Sam's Club, fully set up.

First, I don't mind it at all, I like all the festive stuff, puts me in a good mood, and there really isn't much in the way of decorations or activities for Thanksgiving anyway, beyond cooking and eating and having uncomfortable day-long meals with family. :)

Second, it kind of makes sense to be selling the outdoor stuff now, if you're in a cold-weather climate, because now's the time to be planning your outdoor display, going through your lights to make sure they work, whatever.

I know I'll be getting my lights out this weekend, and I'll get them put up sometime over the next two weeks, because I'll be damned if I'm stringing lights a month from now when it's 25F!
 
Yes, I know I am up in Massachusetts, but NOTHING goes out for a winter holiday until the second week of December here. I also want to be sure my tree is more freshly-cut than now.

I can be just cheerful seeing the Halloween/Samhain and the Thanksgiving things now. Christmas and/or Solstice can wait. I will look in November on that end of things.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom