Happy Halloween!

Well, Halloween has finally arrived.
Hope you have stocked up on sweets and chocolates.

In Turkey last week they had the "Sugar Bayram" which was a bit like having Halloween after Lent. People had been fasting for 30 days and then it was 3 days of family visits and lots of sticky, gooey cakes. The kids also went door to door to get their "Halloween" gifts. The good thing about Turkey is it's treats without the tricks.

Have a good night and kids, don't get sugar poisoning!

Halloween pumpkin sailing anybody?

I saw an intriguing item on BBC Breakfast News this morning.

Apparently you can find these monster 100+ pound (45+ kilo) pumpkins that you can hollow out and use as a kind of coracle (a small round boat). Of course you have to be a kid or a jockey to get inside.

Halloween gift idea number 54 - a giant pumpkin and a paddle.

Halloween in Belfast

Here's a great Halloween gift if your loved one is into all things spooky.

Belfast, in Northern Ireland, is having a week of Halloween events and the highlight is the Spooky Bus Tour where you visit loads of haunted places on an open top touring bus.

Who sends these retro emails?

Sorry to be non-Halloween for two days in a row but I am getting really annoyed by what I call "retro emails".

I get a lot of emails every day and I try to deal with them all, which means a lot of deleting :-)
It is very frustrating when I have finished and my inbox still shows an unanswered email or two.

When this first happened I thought I was going crazy and I had to go through thousands of old messages (time for another cleanup!) to find the culprit. What somebody had done was set their computer to 2004 and the mail became the very first one in my archive.

OK, now I know so I can just go to the last page and delete it, right?

Wrong! Some more sophisticated vandals set the time for just 5 or 6 months ago so you have to spend more time searching. All in all, these "retro emails" are very frustrating and time consuming.

Anybody got any ideas about how to block them?

After Halloween it's only 47 shopping days to Christmas...

I know this is about Halloween and it' s a bit early, but I came across this great idea for a Christmas gift for young kids.

What you do is upload a digital photo of your child. They make a cartoon drawing of the child and they become a character in a Christmas cartoon which you get on DVD. A perfect personalised gift.

Check it out now because it takes them a few weeks to prepare it and the Christmas rush is coming.

www.keepintouchwithsanta.com

Friday the 13th vs Halloween

Come on, you don't really believe in all this Friday 13th stuff do you?
Apparently, many Americans do, and quite a few are going to stay at home today.
Despite this, a recent report says that there are more accidents and hospital admissions
on a Friday 13th than any other day. Probably it's Freddy Kreuger.

On the other hand, if you stay at home on Halloween you're going to get annoyed by all those pesky kids demanding gifts. If you go out, you're no better off because they will think you're hiding and play a trick on you.

This month is a bit of a double whammy, isn't it?

TransAtlantic Halloween

Is the Halloween experience the same on both sides of the Atlantic?

When I was a kid growing up in Britain (not very recently I'm afraid)
I don't remember it as much of a big deal. In fact, what we really got
excited about was Guy Fawkes (sometimes called Bonfire Night) on
the 5th November. There was even a little song

Remember, remember the Fifth of November
Gunpowder treason and plot

For those of you who don't know the history behind it.
There was big Catholic/Protestant divide in England
400 years ago and a group of Catholics plotted to blow up
the Houses of Parliament when the King was inside. One
of the plotters warned a friend not to attend and that was the
end of that. The conspirators were hung, drawn and quartered
and we got a new celebration (giving thanks that the life of
the King had been saved).

Anyway, we usually had a great evening with fireworks, a
bonfire, toffee apples and a guy (an effigy of the leading
conspirator, Guy Fawkes). You were supposed to make a guy
out of old clothes and some kind of filling material but it was
usually easier to dress up your smallest friend and put a mask
on them. Then you wheeled the guy around shouting
"Penny for the guy". The proceeds were used to buy fireworks
(or chocolate!).

I think nowadays the colonisers have been colonised and we
are making more of Halloween following the American custom
of Trick or Treating and dressing up in costumes.

Perhaps we will even start celebrating Thanksgiving one day!

Halloween vs Samhain

You might have heard another name for Halloween - Samhain.

Again this comes from the pagan roots of the Halloween celebration.
In the old Celtic calendar, Samhain was the time when the Sun died
and the world was plunged into the darkness of winter.
It is supposed to be a very powerful time for ceremonies linked to
Mother Earth.

It is not just Halloween - many of our modern festivals have
pagan links - Christmas, Easter, May Day, Harvest Festival.

So, next time you put on a Halloween costume or trick or treat,
remember you are taking part in a modern day version of an
ancient celebration.

Okay, here's some more resources for you to check out those Halloween gift ideas.

First up is where to get those fancy costumes for the kids.
Even if you want to make your own, just check out these sites for ideas.

http://infant-halloween-costume-ideas.blogspot.com

http://halloweencostumesforkids.blogspot.com


Then, how do you change the decor in the house to make it all creepy
(not too creepy - you don't want to give them nightmares!)

http://halloweendecor.blogspot.com


Finally, get some hints on the best ways to go about trick or treating

http://halloween-trick-or-treat.blogspot.com



Only 24 days to Halloween - get thinking!

Pumpkin Peril for Halloween!

Oh dear.
Apparently there won't be many be many extra large pumpkins this Halloween because of fungus affecting the crop in some states. High temperatures and record rainfall in August provided perfect conditions for the fungus to grow. So get out here and get your pumpkins early - if you find an extra big one it will be the perfect Halloween gift for your family. Everyone else will have little teeny-weeny ones and you'll be the envy of your street.

The Rocky Horror Show anyone?

When I was at college it was a Halloween tradition to watch the Rocky Horror Show.

We'd all get (cross) dressed up and drunkenly lip-synch along and do all the actions
(wave a lighter during "There's a Light", fire water pistols over our newspapers when
Brad and Janet were caught in the storm...).

Ah, those were the days. (Oh god, do I sound old or what?)

I wonder what college students do for Halloween now?

Halloween and Jack O Lantern

So just who was Jack O Lantern?

He was a bad boy who, according to Irish legend, met his just desserts and went to Hell.
However, the road to Hell was paved with bad street lighting so the Devil, being the sympathetic soul that he is, tossed him a burning ember with which to light his way.

Now, burning embers aren't much fun to hold in your naked hand so this is where Jack got a brainwave and hollowed out a turnip to hold his light (I suppose the Devil also gave him a knife otherwise it would have been a bit difficult).

And, voila! The Devil was so happy he made this improvised lantern his Halloween gift to the world. And Jack, being the Devil's Joint Venture partner, had this invention named after him.

Why do we use pumpkins at Halloween?

Apparently this came from Irish immigrants to the New World.
During Halloween back in Ireland they hollowed out turnips to create
"Jack O Lantern" but discovered that pumpkins were much
softer and therefore easier to carve.

Myth or truth? Whatever, pumpkins are much bigger and
more colorful than turnips.

And just who is Jack O Lantern?

Find out tomorrow.

Witches and Horror

Over the last 30 years because of Hollywood, Halloween has become more and more associated with horror films. Well, I can't give you a film, but how about a bloodcurdling story

http://horrorhalloween.blogspot.com

and what Halloween would be complete without a witch

http://halloweenwitch.blogspot.com

A couple of days ago I promised to point you in the direction of Halloween gifts
for children so checkout these Halloween costumes at Playtex. (I thought they did bras!)

http://store.babycenter.com/category/halloween/?stage=all&intcmp=contentsite_halloween_leftnav

Sorry about the long link.

Halloween Cowgirl

Maybe after seeing this she might prefer the Halloween Devil outfit!

Halloween gift negotiations continue

My wife and I have compromised.

If I really have to get her a Halloween themed gift then
she would like a cowgirl outfit (because she likes the hat).

I haven't seen many cowgirls in Halloween films but maybe
she could be a cowgirl vampiress...?

Oops! Got sidetracked...

Sorry. I should be looking for Halloween gifts for you, not doing research into etymology.

Halloween Cards seem to be all the rage. I found two more sites:
http://halloween-cards.blogspot.com
http://halloween-card-ideas.blogspot.com

I didn't realise the extremes some people go to.
Apparently there is a thriving Halloween market in contact lenses:
http://halloween-eyes.blogspot.com

If you are the artistic type and you don't want to shell out too much money on
Halloween gifts you could try out some crafts or decorating:
http://halloweencraftsandprojects.blogspot.com
http://halloweendecorating.blogspot.com

We've done Halloween Dog Costumes so tomorrow I'll be pointing you in the direction of
Halloween costumes for kids.

Halloween wins hands down!

I did a quick search on Google:

Hallowe"en: 1,550,000 results

Halloween: 179,000,000 results

I guess the apostrophe is pretty much dead and buried.

Halloween or Hallowe'en?

I seem to remember when I was a kid that we used to celebrate Hallowe'en but somewhere along the way the apostrophe disappeared and we now celebrate Halloween.

I know the apostrophe is to mark the elision of the letter "v" because we are talking about All Hallows' Eve(n). But I wonder exactly when it went and who decided it would go.

The Ninth Edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary (1996) gives the apostrophised spelling. The Cambridge Dictionary of American English (2000) gives both alternatives, with the first (and presumably more common) spelling Halloween, as does the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

Let me check out a few more dictionaries and I'll get back to you.