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Halloween Traditions

22:49 / 30.10.05

Ok guys, I'm a Halloween Procrastinator...And I am just sitting down to carve a pumpkin...now throw me some CRAAAZY cool ideas, Barbelith!

Also, share your Halloween Traditions...I realize that The Temple has a good thread about this stuff, but it had an emphasis on Magick...(Obviously)...so, I'm talking about the stuff that they aren't: Movies, TV Specials you like, Pumpkin Carving ideas, foods/snacks/spooky beverages, How you decorate your house/yard, Halloween music, and how the hell to bake pumpkin seeds so that they taste good, and whatever else you can think of that is Halloween-Esque.

Lilly Nowhere Late

05:21 / 31.10.05

Pumpkin seed baking! What a coincidence!
Pull out all the seeds and don't wash them. Lay them out on a baking tray to dry for a few hours or overnight. Drizzle with a tiny bit of olive oil and sprinkle with your favourite spice; we use Old Bay and a bit of nutmeg. Chili would be good too. Then bake in a medium hot oven until just browning, stirring them all about a time or two. Usually takes about 15 minutes.
We also carved one jack-o-lantern last night and cut up one pumpkin for cooking. Tonight will be pumpkin curry(with chickpeas and coconut), and we've stored in the freezer pumpkin for roasting, a pasta sauce and puree for soup. MMMM. One can get an amazing amount of food from one pumpkin worth about £3!
Tonight we dress up, take the 4 year old out trick or treating at trusted neighbourhood houses then have folks back here for the curry and merriment. The house is decorated and the spooks are prepared.

Mon Oncle Ignatius

08:22 / 31.10.05

And the werewolves... will be loose in the city!

(This is because both I and the four year old referred to above have particularly effective werewolf masks for tonight. The dog was freaked out by our heads being covered up with apparent dog head a bit, and tried to nibble them).

wembley can change in 28 days

10:15 / 31.10.05

TEH GREAT PUMPKIN!

It's Peanuts, it sucks, but it's unavoidable so you'd better watch it anyway.

Also for the house: we used to have a tape of creepy sounds, and we'd hook up the stereo so the speakers pointed out the windows. A better idea would be to hide some mini-speakers in the bushes and have a ju-on kind of noise coming from them every few minutes or so...

The decoration/trick-or-treating house getup that made the best impression on me was a house I came to that had your standard but we-put-in-an-effort scarecrow with the jack-o-lantern head. You know, take the old plaid shirt and overalls, stuff with pillows and clothes and straw, and have it sitting out on the porch. This particular one, however, when we approached the front door, stood up and boo'd me and my friends, causing us much heart attack potentiality at the age of 13. Some guy was wearing the pumpkin on his head. Bonus points if you can figure out how to still get a candle in there.

pointless & uncalled for

11:17 / 31.10.05

Ahhh Halloween, that time of year when the happy residents of Peckham will cup an ear in eager anticipation of dulcet youthful voices calling out "Skagger, SKAGGER, SKAGGER open up man I need some fucking gear". Whereupon they will dash to open the door to disparate faces, covered in pustules and sores that weep far more than any miracle statue of note.

"Give us some shit man I'm all fucking fucked here mate" the happy children will intone in thin reedy voices and stretch out their bony, clammy hands for the readily proffered bowls of crack.

"Fucking easy, do I look like fucking Father fucking Christmas you cunts", proclaim the householders before laughing heartily as the kids perch on the kerb and check the quality of their haul.

Good times

But don't forget the lesson of Metzger, that old hippy woman who used to live at number 37. Thought it would be a nice to offer herbal E as a healthy alternative. Nailed her hands to the pumpkin they did and it was weeks before that letterbox turned up.

19:01 / 31.10.05

Little fuckers have been ringing the doorbell here all night and we've been ignoring it. When we go out later, to wheel out the bins, there will no doubt be all sorts of crap flung over it as punishment for our misanthropy.

It's not that we're mean. We just disapprove of the US Imperialism of the Trick or Treat meme.

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

19:54 / 31.10.05

That was a wonderful little poem, Xoc. I approve.

I miss baked pumpkin seeds. Haven't had them in years, since I don't do a lot of pumpkin carving at my dorm. I like em warm, brown, and with lots of salt.

My big halloween tradition is, of course, that Tim Burton classic, "The Nightmare Before Christmas". Possibly accompanied by "Army of Darkness", "The Night Stalker", "Ginger Snaps", and "Buffy: The Vampire Slayer". Since I don't need to get up tomorrow, though I suppose I might as well, I can watch all night.

22:17 / 31.10.05

my tradition is to hire the crappest movie ever (although I try to make it good) this year it turned out to be about lesbian vampire zombies. I also carved a butternut squash to look like my mate as is tradition, a spectacular halloween as always, enjoyed by all!

22:36 / 31.10.05

Your mate looks like a butternut squash? How unfortunate.

My Halloween tradition is to buy candy for trick-or-treaters that never come, and then just eat the candy.

BTW, Halloween is not a dog-friendly holiday, I'm learning. People in hats and masks, plus chocolate wrappers all over the street = no fun for dog walking.

23:46 / 31.10.05

my traditional halloween: drink untill you think dressing up is a good idea, dress up, drink some more, realise its mid-november, drink. go home, alone. drink

repeat.

Lilly Nowhere Late

05:36 / 01.11.05

I have to say that I am impressed with the number of people in our Hackney'd neighbourhood who made an effort to entertain the trick-or-treaters. My favourite was the woman who shouted from her 4th story window,"Please ring our bell, we've got so much candy and no one has rung our bell!". So we did and she and her poor child, all dressed up in a fabulous skeleton suit came to the door and doled out candy and all were filled with joy. I asked the skeleton kid why he/she wasn't out trick-or-treating too. It relplied, "I have to stay in and help mum do this cos she loves it." awwwww.
The other favourite was the couple of people who tried to convince my troop of one 5-year-old, three age 4, two age 2 that they were supposed to do or say or perform something in order to get their treat. The kids just stood all upturned faces grinning going, "happy halloween!" over and over, completely unresponsive to the requests for action. Nothing like a band of small creepy kids to let down a grown up hoping for a show.
Tango Mango who hates Halloween did a great job making our house look like a big shadow lantern and scaring kids. He said we had trickers, but the whole bowl of nasty chocolate is still sitting here? Wonder what he gave them?
Nice after party too but as ususal, my head hurts! We had the Barbelith A-list of course, meaning Amity and Anna. I'm sure Anna will be posting the embarrassing photos forthwith.
I love Halloween.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

06:01 / 01.11.05

I'm sorry I missed it... I was at home looking at my totally apocalypsed flat. And sobbing.

On the plus side, I did do some apple bobbing on Saturday, for the first time in mnay years, and discovered I was actually quite good at it. And what a useful skill to have.

08:21 / 01.11.05

Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown - Check

Pumpkin carving - check

Scary Movie - I watched Poltergeist which isn't really that scary but got me scared because it scared the living crap out of me when I was a kid so I think I was a little more scared thinking about THAT than anything.

Stoatie, you all right?>

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:31 / 01.11.05

(Oh, I'm fine, really... I'm just having a "not coping well with stress" thing. It shouldn't last too long. It better fucking not, anyway.)

Mon Oncle Ignatius

08:35 / 01.11.05

Lilly:

Tango Mango who hates Halloween did a great job making our house look like a big shadow lantern and scaring kids.

That's what Hallowe'en[1] is for - scaring small children and anyone else to hand. Many of the trick or treating callers were more freaked out by the over-enthusiastic dog who would bound out of the house and greet them than by my mask though. Said dog would occasionally try leaving with the visiting witch and ghost posse to go off for a visit to the neigbours. Her baby seal costume was very convincing too.

He said we had trickers, but the whole bowl of nasty chocolate is still sitting here? Wonder what he gave them?

Chocolate! Most of the parents/carers only let them take one each.

Stoatie:

I'm sorry I missed it... I was at home looking at my totally apocalypsed flat. And sobbing.

It was fun, and you were missed. Look on the bright side though - at least your trouser press was untouched.

On the plus side, I did do some apple bobbing on Saturday, for the first time in mnay years, and discovered I was actually quite good at it. And what a useful skill to have.

We totally forgot to bob for apples; I even bought some. It would have been great fun in a werewolf mask, if a tad soggy on the fur.

[1] I'm going to start a campaign to reclaim the apostrophe in Hallowe'en. Who's signing up?

14:50 / 01.11.05

embarrassing photos forthwith

There aren't any of Lilly though.

Red Cross Iodized Salt

15:33 / 01.11.05

It's not that we're mean. We just disapprove of the US Imperialism of the Trick or Treat meme.

Trick or treating stems from an Irish (possibly also Scottish?) tradition that occurred during the festival of Samhain. It was the one night of the year when teenage boys were permitted to go and intimidate people into giving them money and gifts . It's the same basic principal that underlies most European festival traditions...rule of law is suspended (to a degree) so that the mob can get things out of its collective system in a relatively controlled manner. Kind of like the football.

Lilly Nowhere Late

16:15 / 01.11.05

Great pix Anna as I expected. You've even captured Sachabelle(the dog which leaves with strange children dressed as various creatures)doing her baby seal impersonation. Bravo!

That's very interesting about the teenage-boys-run-riot thing. Never knew and didn't think to look it up but I'm glad amerikans can now stop being blamed for everything! On the other hand, we sure can imperialize and comercialize everything to death, no?

Let's have halloween again soon. Maybe in a year or so.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:27 / 01.11.05

Do it again next year and shitty building materials notwithstanding I promise I'll come.

16:36 / 01.11.05

Yes, long tradition behind the trick or treat thing, Red Cross, and some of it derives from my neck of the woods. However, growing up in Scotland, we had guising, treacle scones and dooking for apples. We made lanterns out of turnips. We had no intimidation or revenging upon neighbours who didn't stump up satisfactorily. It would have made no sense in small rural communities where we had to live with each other every other day of the year too.

Those traditionswe had had all survived as relics from the centuries of Celtic & Christian myth and lore that went before. In a generation, American films and tv had overwhelmed those old traditions and my nieces talked only of Trick or Treat and of Pumpkin Lanterns this past weekend.

But, what the Hell. That's how it goes. It's like Coca Cola taking Santa Claus, redefining and fixing him, and selling him back to us. It's a MacHallowe'en with Extra Fries and that's what the kids want and I'm an old fogey.

Lilly Nowhere Late

18:20 / 01.11.05

What are treacle scones like?

18:36 / 01.11.05

The point about treacle scones is that kids love em but they press every No!No!No! button adultsd have. First you dangle a scone or a soda farl from a string just above child height off the floor. A thick slice of bread would do, and often did.

Then youcover them with molasses or treacle or Tate and Lyle Golden Syrup. Best to have a sheet on the floor below. Then you tie the kids' hands loosely behind their backs and they have to stretch up and try to eat the scones with only their dextrous mouths, besmirched in goo in no time at all. They get sticky and messy and have a fabulous time. My OCD buttons fire like crazy and I have to hide in another room. As a kid, I loved it though.

Red Cross Iodized Salt

19:11 / 01.11.05

In a generation, American films and tv had overwhelmed those old traditions and my nieces talked only of Trick or Treat and of Pumpkin Lanterns this past weekend.

Ah, my misunderstanding...probably triggered by people in the US asking me if trick or treating is "popular back home" (back home for me being Ireland).