Halloween

I just realised I never shared any of the Halloween photos - the kids had an absolute ball and we ended up with 58 people at one point!  I'm looking forward to hosting Halloween next year when hopefully the house will be a little larger!!

It's Big - It's Orange...

People's creativity constantly amazes - and sometimes scares me.  Take the humble pumpkin for example. 

Halloween pumpkins can be a thing of wonder, or just plain funny.  Enjoy.

Some Favourites From My Halloween File

Pumpkins

I really, really want to make these for my Halloween decorations this year but I just know I'm not going to get around to it.  Here's the tutorial if anyone else wants to attempt it.  (Feel free to make some for me too!)

Kooky Caitlin

My invitation to Halloween this year specified that costumes were expected - and by that I was meaning the adults specifically. No surprise that it was largely ignored.

The stand out and therefore the winner of the first ever Costume Prize goes to Caitlin - with not only one fabulous costume, but two! First up 'Westie' then a quick change to 'Wuthering Heights'. SUPERB!!

Halloween

The kids favourite day of the year has been and gone and everyone had a fantastic time. The street embraced it and dozens of kids trick or treated their hearts out. The weather was perfect, food only covered one main food group - sugar - as it should and judging by the fact that our two hour party lasted long into the night suggests that the parents all had a good time too.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Halloween

Only 1 More Day

Now for some Halloween treats-

Only 2 More Days

Halloween

People have been kind enough to show an interest in our Halloween day so I thought I'd better post about it.

We had some of our neighbourhood friends over for afternoon tea to help us celebrate and we had a wonderful time eating up all the goodies we had made during the week and drinking buckets of blood. The kids all dressed up for the occasion and I was even able to convince one mum to add some face paint. I'd love to post some photos of these splendid kids but I don't like to add photos of other people without asking.

I can show you this shot as nearly all of their backs are turned! We made our own bats to take home which was great fun.

Later on I took my kids trick or treating and I must say for a country that doesn't really celebrate Halloween we managed to come home with a fair haul!

Surfer boy took one look at me as we were about to leave and said - "You're not seriously leaving the house like that??" Of course I was and I must say I couldn't see his problem!

All in all it was a fabulous day and the excitement on the kids faces was worth every cent I spent on bloody pumpkins that I now don't know what to do with.

Next year we'll definitely be adding Halloween to the calender and it won't be as 'last minute' as it was this year. Watch Out!!

History Lesson

Due to public demand I am going to give all my Australian friends a history lesson...

ORIGINS OF HALLOWEEN

Halloween dates back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain.

The Celts celebrated their new year on November 1st. This day marked the end of the harvest (hence the pumpkin) and the beginning of winter, a time of year often associated with death.

The Celts also believed that on new years eve (Oct 31st) the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became thinner.

To celebrate New Years Eve the Druids built huge bonfires where the people gathered to make sacrifices to the gods. During these celebrations they wore costumes and attempted to tell each others fortunes.

Once Romans had conquered most of the Celtic territory, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.

The first was Feralia, when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honour Pomona, the goddess of fruit and trees.

When Christianity spread to Celtic lands, Pope Boniface IV made Nov 1st All Saint's Day. It is widely believed that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a church sanctioned holiday.

The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hollowmas and the night before began to be called All-hallows Eve, and eventually, Halloween.

Even later the church would make Nov 2 All Soul's Day. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, costumes, angels and devils.

And finally to Beau - I did teach you this , you just weren't listening as usual!!

(I can't for the life of me remember where I got my original notes for this so if I have hugely plagerised someones work I opologise and please let me know so I can credit you.)

HALLOWEEN

Moondoggie and I have been Halloweening our front verandah this morning.


We were in a bit of a quandary as I was unsure when you were allowed to start decorating for this holiday. It is not one that is widely celebrated in Australia so I did what all good bloggers do - contacted the lovely Whitney in America and asked her advice! Apparently, like Christmas, decorating starts as early as possible to eek out maximum enjoyment, hence this mornings pumpkin hanging.

When I was teaching I celebrated Halloween with my class as we had quite a few international students. I felt it was important to explain the origins of Halloween and spent quite a few sessions on it's history and cultural significance. I did not want it to be seen as just another American invention as it has such a wonderful, rich history and is a fascinating celebration.

(If I can lay my hands on my Grade 3 synopsis of Halloween I'll post it for anyone who's interested.)

This year, (or to be honest, yesterday!) I decided it might be fun for the kids to talk about Halloween and decorate a little. They loved the idea and having been brought up on Australian TV which has a scary amount of American programming, they knew heaps more about it than I thought they did. What they didn't know is the background to the celebration so today I'm going to put on my teaching hat again and fill them in. Surprisingly there is more to it than re-runs of scary Simpson's episodes!

And just because I'm in the mood - here are some Halloween decorations that I wish were at my house..... maybe next year!

Photos courtesy of Martha Stewart.com

One more thing - how can we make a fabulous Halloween tradition of our own here in Australia when our seasons are reversed and many of the traditions are related to Autumn?? I guess it's the same as our Christmas dilemma - snowmen, sleigh rides and hot turkey lunches in 40 degree heat!!