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Happy Halloween
lobster
Crusty Veteran
Comments
Bah humbug! I shall be getting out my fire-hose to "welcome" any greedy brats who appear at my door.
PS "Fire-hose" is not a euphemism!
Just be careful with all the mischievous witches who will be out and about tonight...
I would happily give her a good hosing down, though I don't think real witches would be out on a Christian festival like Halloween.
Welcome back! Are you enlightened yet, and if so can you tell us what it is like?
Thanks guys. My favourite recruit ...
Activate!
Enlightened who? Me?
Never!!!
Basking in Samsara as usual.
And ready for a couple more rounds
"Basking in Samsara". I like that!
Why not?
Since we're stuck here, let's face the music and dance...
Dancing in samsara! Dancing through hell realms. Dancing on the far shore ... Sounds like a dance plan ...
I'm kinda bummed.
Times are a changin'. I took Kofi to the barber shop on Saturday and he ran outside super excited that for the first time the barber was able to line up/sharpen his mustache. hahahah. It's so pencil thin. I think facial hair means he is officially too old to trick or treat. 
Adjua did get invited to a Halloween/birthday party last night...and she won the costume party! I worked on her outfit for 3 days. I have the blisters on my finger to prove I wrestled with leggings and a hot glue gun. Out of 35 kids there...only 3 others dressed up...so... not sure how much of a 'win' it was, haha. I always loved to do Halloween with the kids....I'm sad to see it go...Oh well...maybe starting next year I'll be that lady that has the good candy and become the giving house instead of always hitting the pavement.
I haz new plan!
I am in the UK. I don't celebrate All Hallows Eve (most people have no idea why it's called that!) or make Jack o' Lanterns (most people don't know why they're called that!) or tolerate 'trick or treat' ers (most people don't know why that's what kids say!)
It's a waste of time, food, effort and money.
I stick to the good old British traditions, just Mothering Sunday, Easter (Vernal Equinox) and Christmas (Saturnalia or Yule) ....and I can't bear the greeting 'Happy Holidays!' (Who the hell abolished 'Merry Christmas'...?!)
Before you know it, we'll have adopted Thanksgiving, as simply another American import....without knowing why!
Bah, humbug!
(...You had humbugs?! Luxury!!)
>
Oh Gaaaaawd!!! I hope not! I wish we would UN-adopt it.
What a slap in the face to the Native Americans. How did that whole dinner turn out, huh? ! Don't get me started...
Halloween isn't my favorite but I don't mind it. I enjoy telling the kids where the traditions come from, and they enjoy the stories. The 14 year old decided no trick or treating if he had to wear a costume. I refuse to allow my kids to be those that put on a hat and claim it's a costume all to get loads of candy while running over the little ones. So he is going to some youth club party and it'll be just us and the 8 year old. Mild year for us, should be 50F even after dark. Usually it is like 25F and we are in hats, wool socks and mittens. So we're happy about that! I am watching horror movies, which I do enjoy! After trick or treating we light a candle for each loved on who has passed on.
I sent my oldest a gift box last week, he loves Halloween and I miss having him and his excitement around for it.
25 years ago today, we had the biggest winter storm we've ever recorded. I was 15, and I had to climb out the second story window to spend hours shoveling our front door clear. We got 30 inches of snow and were trick or treating in foot deep snow by 4pm. It snowed for 48 hours straight.
The onset of Winter is mild here, too... so many trees still carry green foliage, and the yellowing of their leaves is sporadic and peppered... the silver birch on my neighbour's lawn still bears a full canopy...my Kilmarnock willow too, is still fully laden. Our resident hedgehog is given to wandering the garden, although in other years he has been fast asleep in his hibernation by now...
I too remember though, just a few years ago how England was bound up by snowstorms, ice, deep-winter conditions which crippled transport and held the country in an icy grip. We must have been totally overwhelmed by at least 8" of snow. In comparison to other countries that's a pitiful amount. Ridiculous. Even the British thought so....Yet there we were, frozen solid.... I remember a similar winter to the one you describe however, @karasti , in 1970, in Italy, when my Grandparents celebrated their 50th on December 26th... snow began to fall during that afternoon, while we all celebrated, at a local Hotel, in one enormous family banquet. One uncle famously uttered the immortal words "it won't settle the ground is too wet...." only to prang his car lightly, against the hotel boundary wall, while he skidded gently trying to leave... (Poetic justice...?!) this was in the northern part of Italy, under the pre-alp mountains... so by morning, indeed, we had nearly 7 feet....What a wondrous winter time that was.....
@federica I always thought it would be really neat to be snowed in in the mountains where they get so many feet at a time. i love a good snow storm
Our leaves are pretty much all gone, mostly because of our lack of sunshine at this point. But we haven't had any frost (odd, it's about 7 weeks late now) so we have flowers blooming that we normally only see in the early summer. But I will be glad to be able to be out tonight without having to bring hot beverages and mittens 
We had our first snow quite early this year, it was a white Thanksgiving. A couple of good snowstorms. It's all melted now, the last couple of weeks have been foggy, damp and chilly... weird, feels more like a Vancouver winter.
Some flurries in the forecast for tonight. But it's supposed to be quite warm later in the week, high of 13°C expected on Thursday.
88F/31C- here
@Vastmind I think I would melt! I can barely handle that in July,
It's about 55F here right now, and if it weren't a bit windy, it would be t-shirt weather! But I'll take every last bit, they are predicting a bad winter for us.
Do you all (who participate) get a lot of trick or treaters? We get only a handful, as we live out of town. So we end up with leftover candy. I always get too much, just in case! But then I get what I don't like and send it to work with my husband
We usually get about 100 kids. Depends on the weather, and the night of the week Hallowe'en falls on, a Friday or Saturday tends to be a little busier.
That should keep you going for a while - with some fava beans and a nice Chianti?
There is Buddhism for vampires too! What fun!
https://buddhism-for-vampires.com/
My son spontaneously ganged up with three more friends for a round of Halloween partying, which at 10 years of age pretty much comes down to "let's go knocking doors asking for sweets and hopefully we find a parent silly enough to come along and watch over us."
The silly parent was naturally me, but I wanted to come along because Halloween is not customary here and I feared how people would react when the kids showed up.
I was not ready for the chilly evening temperature, so after three hours of making the tour of our village, I could no longer feel my feet and hands.
But the kids were delighted with all the sweets which surprisingly enough people gave them.
We spent about 2 hours out in the drizzle. Came home with almost half a laundry basket of candy. It kind of grosses me out. But it lasts forever in our house because we mostly use it for our son's low blood sugars. I read somewhere that Halloween is the cause of 70% of all candy eaten in a year
But it was a nice evening, despite the light rain. Warm and lots of people out enjoying being able to be in costumes without winter gear under/over them.
Families with children of all ages were out in droves last night, which surprised me... However, a good friend of mine who lives in a fairly large village, had a note pushed through her door about a week ago, which came from a group of mums... It basically said that if people were happy to participate in the evening, and would be happy to receive a "Trick or Treat" visit, they should leave something orange outside their door, maybe a bright bow tied to the door knocker, or some form of decoration at their entrance somehow. Anyone without anything on or outside their door would not be bothered.
Isn't that considerate? I liked that gesture....
^^. We had something similar, a pumpkin or candle is placed outside.
@federica That is mostly how it is managed here. You don't trick or treat at homes without decorations or other signs that they are participating. If lights are out, no jack o lanterns etc outside, you don't bother them. I always wonder if people who don't participate just hide inside (most of them have ALL their lights out) or if they just go elsewhere for the evening. Even people who have kids who aren't home usually leave candy out. We leave lights on and decorations and then leave a bowl with a sign to help themselves. I kind of feel bad for people who hate it so much, it must be a miserable day for them to have so much noise and so many people out for several hours! Of course, we also have the odd person who will put anti-abortion literature or bibles in kids treat bags...
Our night turned out nice. We had all the lights out...piled in the bed and watched Dancing with the Stars, hahaha....and munched on some pizza. Our street was pretty quiet. But I'm not surprised.
The last couple of years here...the churches have started 'trunk or treat'. Of course, all the fear propaganda has been high...( don't send your kids out to the pedophiles, embracing 'devil' customs, strangers will kill your kids with poisoned candy, etc) The churches have members' cars in their parking lots with the trunks popped open, giving out candy and literature. It's becoming the new norm.
I had a surprise though....I went to go visit Abeena and she was dressed up!
Not her clothes, of course. Orange is the new black. lololol
..sorry, couldn't resist that joke
She had bunny accessories on. She cut ears out of her cardboard cracker box, covered them with notebook paper (toothpaste to make it stick), and wrapped her hair up in pigtails to hold the ears straight up. She used her pink and black pens to color shade them and did nose and cheeks on her face. It was a fun surprise.
She ordered some bubble gum pops from her extra commissary and we sat and talked about Halloween of past years.
We gave candy out to about 90 kids last night. So, pretty much average I guess. Mrs. Walker didn't go all out with the decorations this year, she usually gets quite elaborate with it.
It's pretty much the same here regarding participation, if there are no decorations put up, and especially if the lights are out, it usually means the tenant or homeowner isn't participating in Hallowe'en.
@Vastmind It sounds like a nice visit
Always good to make the best of what you have at any given time. I hope she is well. I think of her (and you) often. Where we lived before (Fargo, ND) they did the trunk and treat thing, too. Even in neutral locations, like store parking lots, the churches showed up in droves. It just kind of disgusted me that they hand out that stuff to kids and cant' just let them enjoy the day. Here, there are a few that started the trunk and treat at the park, but (so far) it's just parents who decorate their cars and hand out candy. It was fun. 90% of our trick or treating is traditional door-to-door on foot though. Drives me crazy how much traffic there is with parents driving their little snowflakes door to door so they don't have to walk. Pfft. It's mostly so the parents can sit on their phones and not be "bored" while they follow their kids. Because it's too much to ask to leave the phone in your pocket and enjoy a couple of hours with your kids. Sorry, just a pet peeve, lol.
Halloween, Christmas, Easter what do they all have in common ?
Other than being stolen from the Pagans by fearful Christians? CANDY!
And for us, equal chances at happening in the winter.
I was thinking more along the lines of "They/I want money that's what they/I want!"
Thanks guys.
I see a lot of pumkin heads about. (I may even be one).
I enjoyed everyone's wikid contributions and insights. In particular @Vastmind
As a cat whisperer, visitor to hell realms and self imposed naughty corner resident, it is part of my reminding that hell realms contain sentient beings.
Be kind to the naughties ...
Some years ago we had our Thanksgiving dinner with my daughter who was at that time an involuntary guest at an inpatient facility. We all put on brave faces but it was pretty somber. Reading your description of Halloween this year brought me a huge smile. Something tells me your daughter will pull through with flying colors. What a spirit!
We don't really have Halloween, but we notice that it's on in America from the media. The internet of course is full of blog posts and articles. And our TV channels carry a night of scary movies, and there are decorated pumpkins for sale in supermarkets, but there's no dressing up or trick-or-treating.
It's funny because Christmas here is slowly changing... it used to be purely a religious holiday, with a lot of attention for the paraphernalia of the Christian stories, but nowadays people are adding in a bit more gift giving. The traditional gift giving holiday here is St Nicolaas' Day on December 5th, mostly for kids. You can tell people are a little confused what to do, some families give gifts on Christmas and others stick with St Nicolaas only.
Some other American traditions are also noticeable here, like the Thanksgiving weekend and the Black Friday sales afterwards. Some stores have been picking that up and are starting to do more elaborate actions.
Enjoy Halloween you folks... any excuse for a party, lol.
@Kerome it's interesting they would pick up Thanksgiving in particular. A lot of Americans celebrate it as a family holiday but reject the reasoning for the holiday because of the history attached to Christopher Columbus and how he has previously been hailed as a hero here (and is still taught that way in most elementary schools). Kind of crazy to think that Americans are rejecting the US Thanksgiving history while other countries are picking up the tradition
Christmas often has no religious connotation here at all. We do not celebrate it as a religious holiday. My kids barely know who Jesus is. We do talk about why others celebrate it, since they ask. Truthfully, our traditions are more Yule related than Christmas related. No Christ in our Christmas, but I do enjoy the church music and some years I go to midnight Christmas Eve services just to sing with everyone, lol.
Well it is more the Black Friday sales than actual Thanksgiving which seems to be happening, I have to say. Thanksgiving with its history is more specifically American.
But here Christmas is big on the religion front... many people still pray before food, and go to church for the Christmas service as their main attachment to the Christian religion.
Here it just depends who you ask, I guess. If you believe in the War on Christmas, then there is still a heavy religious component here. But as is often the case, the people screaming to put Christ back in Christmas are the least Christian-acting people you could know. It's an odd thing. People get so very attached to their traditions to the point they tell everyone else they are doing it wrong. Humans are just weird.
A nice Halloween gift perhaps?
http://www.cafepress.com/landoverbaptist.13326482