Hallowe'en

[ailbhe]

I realised this evening that for me, Hallowe'en is a festival of giving. It's just before my birthday (Happy Birthday Becky!) and I love it to bits.

I love children getting dressed up in costumes - one boy this evening was keen to point out he'd dyed his hair and I had to turn on another light to see it - and the way they turn and preen and beam and roar and display when admired. I love giving them sweets and satsumas and nuts. I love putting a candle (some years a skull candle, some years a jack o'lantern) in the window so that they know they are welcome to knock.

I love having lots of children (10 walking guests, 1 pre-walking, and my own 2 today) milling around my house on a carpet of popcorn, crisps and monkey-nut shells. I love wet hair and sleeves from bobbing for apples.

I love the dressing up - not disguising yet, for these little children, they want to be known as who they are - and the way masks and costumes come off when they get in the way of play.

I love having parties where I can prepare all the food the day before so there's only normal housework to do on the day of the party.

And of course I love that tomorrow is my birthday, the thirty-first anniversary of the day my mother had a baby on her birthday. I really love the years when we spend that day together.

Comments

[the0lady.livejournal.com]

Ah, I had no idea about the candle thing... That explains why we never got any trick or treaters when we lived in houses! Now that I'm in a flat I wouldn't expect any. I wonder what they do in the US, in places where there are large communities all living in apartment blocks?

Anyway, Happy Ailbhe and Ailbhe's Mum Day! I'm glad you had such a pleasant lead-in to it. =)

[ai731.livejournal.com]

I wonder what they do in the US, in places where there are large communities all living in apartment blocks?

People decorate their apartment doors with cardboard cut-out pumpkins and skeletons and witches, and the children trick-or-treat from door-to-door inside their apartment building.

We had a wonderful flock of children in costume for Halloween when we lived in a fairly low-income part of the city, full of 2- and 3- and 4-apartment buildings. Now that we live out in the countryside, we don't get trick-or-treaters at all. I assume parents drive their children into the nearest village, or that the rural schools have big parties.

[ailbhe]

It's not so much a candle thing as a clear visual cue thing. Pumpkins painted on the windows or whatever would be just as good.

We had a lovely birthday :)