Hallowe'en
Oct. 31st, 2009 10:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ailbheI 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.
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.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-01 05:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-31 10:50 pm (UTC)Wishing you a very happy birthday and a healthy, happy year ahead.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-31 11:34 pm (UTC)I do have a 15kV Jacob's ladder in the window, though.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-31 11:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-01 12:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-01 12:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-01 12:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-01 12:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-01 12:57 am (UTC)Happy birthday to you and your mother! :D
(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-01 05:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-01 08:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-01 08:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-01 10:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-01 11:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-01 01:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-01 01:24 pm (UTC)Anyway, Happy Ailbhe and Ailbhe's Mum Day! I'm glad you had such a pleasant lead-in to it. =)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-01 06:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-01 06:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-01 08:03 pm (UTC)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.
Review
Date: 2009-11-02 07:05 am (UTC)and Happy Birthday...
Term papers (http://www.flashpapers.com/)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-03 12:27 am (UTC)We had a lovely birthday :)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-05 09:43 pm (UTC)