Well first week of work down, and I had all these plans! The first night, my mum said that I looked like a zombie, haha
Which means that the last couple of days, I have been really struggling to think of anything to write. Which normally, I’d be fine with, but this is Halloween week! It’s like not having any “flow” at Christmas!
I am so tired, I just don’t want to do these blogs at the moment, haha. Excuse the lack of entertainment
Top 5 Favourite Movies … I’m not really into the big scary films. Real life is scary enough
Nightmare Before Christmas
Hot Fuzz
Aliens or Predator
All The Addams Family movies
The Six Sense still gets me
Actually, I also really like all the Dracula movies…But have still yet to watch ‘Nosferatu’
Top 5 Halloween treats…The first one may shock you!
I LOVE it…Candy corn =D
Sweet and Salty Popcorn
Any lemon kind of drink
Minty treats
Chocolate Mousse
Top 5 songs that get me in the “mood” for Halloween
Long there has been debate whether or not Christianity “stole” Samhain and made it a holiday called Halloween. When large numbers of Irish people emigrated to the United States after the Great Famine in the 19th century, they carried their Christian-Pagan tradition with them, which lead to the popularity of Halloween in America today.
“Jack o’lantern” comes from the Irish legend of Stingy Jack. The story goes, that Stingy Jack invited the devil to have a drink with him, but Jack didn’t want to pay for the drink, so he convinced the devil to turn himself into a coin. Instead of buying the drink, he pocketed the coin and kept it close to a silver cross in his house, preventing the devil from taking shape again. He promised to let the devil go as long as he would leave Jack alone for a year – and that if Jack died, the devil wouldn’t claim his soul. After a year, Jack tricked the devil again to leave him alone and not claim his soul. When Jack died, God didn’t want such a conniving person in heaven and the devil, true to his word, would not allow him into hell. Jack was sent off into the night with only a burning coal to light his path. He placed the coal inside a carved-out turnip and has been roaming the earth ever since.
People in Ireland and Scotland began creating their own creations of Jack’s lanterns out of turnips, beets and potatoes. The tradition traveled to the United States along with the immigrants and people began to use pumpkins, native to North America, for the lanterns instead. Some say though that in Samhain tradition, they really used human heads!
It was believed that phantoms walked the earth on the night of Samhain, so people would dress up in costumes in an effort to repel the spirits.
In the eighth century, in an effort to spread Christianity, Pope Gregory III decreed November 1 as All Saints’ Day and incorporated some of the rituals of Samhain.
Samhain was one of four major Celtic seasonal festivals, along with Imbolc, Beltane, and Lughnasadh, which occurred around 2000 years ago.
Trick-or-treating was inspired by the medieval English tradition of “souling,” which involved children going door-to-door on All Souls Day, offering prayers for residents’ deceased loved ones in exchange for food.
A HUGE part of both Halloween and Samhain is…the FOOD!
Here are some food, and a recipe with them that I have actually used over the years. Since I am not a confident cook, below are all the recipes that I actually have used. I’m going to also include my recommendations.
This is clearly the easiest dish to make, and also one of the yummiest. You just generally melt some marshmallows and chocolate buds together, and use the biscuits or sweet crackers to dip with. These days you can find vegan friendly marshmallows as well. So you can make two different dips, but one vegan friendly.
These are also pretty easy, because it’s just strawberries dipped in white chocolate, with little chocolate frosting for eyes. Of course though, if you’re running out of time though (sometimes the icing and the strawberries, kind of “melt” into each other), don’t worry about the eyes.
I have differed this recipe as few times. You can make the mousse yourself, or just buy the mousse (especially if you have a place that makes really nice mousse). You can put all sorts of animal lollies in it. I love getting frogs (which we have in Australia) sour worms. You can use any kind of biscuits for the Headstones, or none at all. One time I put gummy bears in the mousse, making it look like some buried them. There are body part lollies.
Again, this is one that you can differ to your tastes. I suggest using a sweet and/or salty, popcorn. I would also suggest just using white chocolate, rather than milk or dark chocolate. I just found that the white chocolate just made it taste a little sweeter. You can add whatever you want as well, I usually use just candy corn, white chocolate drizzled, icing sugar and sweet and salty popcorn. In the recipe, the author suggests that you can use pretzels, M&Ms, Reese’s pieces.
Now this is one of the harder recipes that I found to do, mainly because it a little fidgety. But they are a lot of fun to eat. Remember you don’t need to heat up the hotdogs in water, you wait until they are wrapped, and placed into the oven. They cook in the oven, with the dough wrapped around. Of course, you can choose whatever dip you want. The usual sauces and condiments go well with this recipe.
I love to drink too, all drinks…except jagerbombs and that horrible water, what’s it called, it’s got all bubbles in it…Oh, and that aniseed stuff. I have tried experiments over the years, but I cannot get drinks right.
I love music, it definitely can change my mood. Halloween music can definitely get me in the mood of Halloween, and Samhain type Celtic music, makes me feel humbled, and that I should do more to honour those who have passed. Now I was thinking of doing my 5 favourite Halloween and 5 favourite Samhain…But I think I might stick with Samhain, for the moment. Everyone else will probably do a Halloween one anyway, lol
This probably my most favorite one…I even have it on my ipod…The Spiral Dance
Bernard Alvarez
If you haven’t heard this one, this one makes me feel wicked, but in a good way.
I find it’s always better to be organised for these sorts of things. Make sure that you have enough candy, chocolates and lollies for Halloween trick and treat, a costume (even if you only trick and treat), Movies! Music! Then you have to consider anything extra. Like what shall I do for Samhain. I’m going to be alone for most of the Halloween weekend! Do I dare watch the scary films!
So far, I’ve gotten at least one bucket of sweeties, but I definitely need more.
I need to look through my stuff to see if I have simple costume for trick and/or treating, haha.
Do I have “creepy” music playing in the background, for when someone knocks on the door?
There are a lot of things to consider, and I’m not even throwing a party!
I am currently unsure of what is going to happen next week, but I still want to run up to it with a lot of fun!
How do you do it though? When emotionally, may not physically have a lot of things going…How do you bring the fun?!
You know how like yesterday, I was writing about my changes? I have decided to do a proper online book discussion, once a week through my Discord channel. There’s few people I can reach out to via there. However, it should be fun! I don’t think I can put a schedule on it. I was thinking of doing it on a Sunday evening, so nothing to “hard”. Just a chat with tea =D We can all talk about what we’re enjoying reading =D
So that’s something fun, I am looking forward too =D Sunday nights, doesn’t matter if I’m working the next day or not. I get bored easily, lol. Just something to finish off at least my weekend, lol.
On a completely related topic, do any of you play the Facebook “People You May Know” game? If you don’t know what the game is. It’s where you look through the FB list of ‘people you may know’ and try to guess if you know who they are also friends with.
(Can you tell I’m struggling to find inspiration ?lol)
I am spending this weekend getting ready for Halloween. Here is Australia, we not as “crazy” as Americans are about it…Well I would like it be more crazy, one of the things I like about America (haha). There’s going to be no party this year though =( Too many ‘crazy’ things, especially with my Gran. We have no idea when she’ll be accepted into a home yet, and from what we know you only get a couple of days to get her in there.
HOWEVER! I am still going to be doing “trick and treat”. I figure that to get into the “spirit” (haha) of some fun, I’ll start to set up for that. I’ve got all sorts of things, and trick and treat type buckets from previous years and previous Halloween parties. Halfway through the month of “Halloween”, good time to start. I probably need to think of something to wear, to answer the door with.
Out of the American “Holidays” … Halloween is my favourite, but they probably got that from the Celtic Pagans and their festival of Samhain. Anywhoo, this is the month where we “celebrate” the dead!
This year I think I want to see about how to “celebrate” my Samhain side. I think this year is turning out to be even crazier than last year. I’ve already got stuff together for trick and treaters though! Even though I am Australian, last year, the neighbours actually did the whole trick and treating thing. This year, I would like to join them.
Mainly for myself though, I would rather do Samhain. We are currently looking at homes for my Gran, and we need to be really be able to go at anytime.
So some things I was thinking of was:
Make my own little witch broomsticks (just little tiny ones from twigs out the back). Hang them around the front.
I’m getting just a plain black wreath, so I can probably do something with that.
Light candles, even if it’s just those little flickering fake ones.
Sage everything!
I’m thinking because Samhain is for honouring and thinking of those who have passed. I don’t know how, but make a little memory table, and perhaps, even get people in the community to write down the name of a lost loved one. Then take them and burn them in our fire pit, or barbecue.
How lucky are we that this year, Halloween is held on a actual weekend! Which is why I want to talk about the yummy treats that are some of our favs for Halloween! After all, what is Halloween without food. It’s just not a thing.
Now I am going to post a article from Delish.com, for all those people who are possibly actually celebrating Halloween this year and may need some easy ideas. But I want to talk about yours and mine, absolute favourites!
Some of these I would not call “easy” to make, lol. Be wary, some of them may actually give you a heart attack lol
Now, these may shock some…but I don’t actually like pumpkin…You know, the traditional food of Halloween…I like pumpkin soup, but mostly, I don’t like pumpkin.
I actually went to America, over a decade ago now. It wasn’t until I was in Australia, that I first tasted candy corn, and maaaaaaaaaaaaaaan, do I LOVE it!
Lolsys Library 