Showing posts with label History of Halloween. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History of Halloween. Show all posts

Thursday, 23 October 2008

Halloween Party How To - Eerie But Easy Halloween Magic

A safe Halloween can mean having a house party instead of going door to door for tricks and treats. Simple and inexpensive decorations and quick and easy sweet desserts can be the answer to a fun Halloween party.

A haunted house with scarily clever touches will stop partygoers dead in their tracks. Use candlelight to create dark shadows in the corners of your rooms. Put ghostly white tapers in a flea market candleabra to enhance the creepiness of cobwebs and flying bats that can be found at most local dollar stores. Flea markets, garage sales, secondhand stores, and dollar stores are great places to use your imagination to find props for your haunted house effects. You can also trick out your jack-o-lanterns with bewitching handmade halloween masks that you cut out from black felt or construction paper.

Give "dressed to kill" a whole new meaning with a pumpkin headed specter. Here's how: Carve a grimacing jack-o-lantern, then carefully attach it to the top of an old dressmakers dummy, or something similar. Drape the "mannequin" with tattered looking two ply cheesecloth or torn up old white sheets, and position it in the foyer to greet your guests. If you are willing to spend a little more, you can purchase a smoke/mist machine that gives a really eerie atmosphere to your other decor. I have seen them retail for about $60 at some stores.

Try these easy ideas for a fright fest- conjure up a devilish looking dessert by frosting slice and bake sugar cookies with white icing. Then, starting at the cookie's center, pipe circles of black icing. Create creepy cobwebs by alternately dragging a toothpick from the center to the edge and from the edge to the center of the cookie. Scooped out mini pumpkins can become spidery votives thanks to tealights and pipe cleaners. After scooping out the pumpkin, make spider legs out of black pipe cleaners and place a tea light in the hollow of the gourd.

Adults and children alike can have a spooktacular time at a Hallowen house party. Let your imagination soar!

Wednesday, 22 October 2008

Trick Or Treat - A Halloween Tradition

Trick or Treat - Smell My Feet - Give Me Something Good To Eat! These words are a Halloween tradition and have been uttered countless times over the years and will again come October 31. Are you ready for the parties and celebrations that will be here before you know it?

You need to make a list consisting of everything that must be done in preparation for this exciting holiday. It is not only the children who have to make their decision on who to masquerade as this year, you are invited as well.

Invited to participate as adults should - and to act like a kid again. Decorate your yard with pumpkins, scarecrows, and bales of hay. Plug the DVD in at the front entryway and play spooky, eerie sounds to greet your guests. Create a stuffed monster with an outfit filled with hay or old rags. Use an old mask on a ball or bucket as a face and set your creature on a chair, a swing, or standing under the tree.

There are many creative and totally unique ways to decorate both the outside and the inside of your home. Use pumpkins in your windows and as centerpieces for your tables; witches, ghosts and menacing monsters in your windows, on your walls, doorways and shelves also help to set the mood.

Don't forget the many visitors that could come to trick or treat on this special night. Be prepared with plenty of treats to hand out to the pirates, witches - both good and bad - the ghosts, skeletons, fairies, lady bugs and all the creatures that will be darkening your doorway.

Last, but surely not least, the Halloween costumes for everyone. There are parties to attend, or maybe you are hosting one? Dressing in disguise to celebrate at work? Or, go out to dinner at a special restaurant that encourages participation in the traditions of the holiday.

Halloween by all accounts, is a strange and peculiar holiday. The one night of the year that can fulfill your wildest fantasy, dress in costume, act (and look) silly, and it is all okay and widely accepted to do so.

Trick or treat time is a fun time. It is a time for parties and celebrating, so go have a good time, be safe and Happy Halloween. Trick or treat - a Halloween tradition - decorations, costumes and more. Explore Everything Halloween.

Saturday, 18 October 2008

20 Non-Edible Halloween Treats to Give Trick-or-Treaters

Halloween is fast approaching and if you're like me, you're not especially thrilled to contribute to the expanding waistlines of our children by passing out candy.

It's no secret that there's an obesity problem in America. Parents and children both are eating more and more junk food while exercising less. This of course results in a society where people are getting fatter.

And along comes Halloween, where children are allowed to go from house to house collecting candy. It's ridiculous! No wonder we have a weight problem in this country.

But are you worried that if you don't pass out something then perhaps you'll get "tricked" instead?

Never fear! You can still participate in the Halloween fun by passing out one of these non-edible Halloween treats to your trick-or-treaters. All of these items can be purchased quite inexpensively from your local party supply store. They should cost about the same as it would cost to buy candy.

  • Halloween pencils
  • Small tubs of playdough
  • Temporary tattoos
  • Halloween erasers
  • Coloring books
  • Silly Putty
  • Small toys
  • Stickers
  • Glow sticks
  • Bubbles
  • Pencil toppers
  • Super bounce balls
  • Masks
  • Origami paper and instructions
  • Small decks of cards
  • False vampire teeth
  • Coins
  • Slime
  • Plastic jewelry
  • Tooth brushes

These goodies are great because they are all fun to play with and last a lot longer than a candy bar. Many kids will also appreciate the novelty of receiving something that is not candy. By handing out these non-edible Halloween treats, you will still be able to celebrate the holiday without the guilt that comes from giving trick-or-treaters even more candy.

Shannon Tani is a former fattie, who weighed over 220lbs. She has currently lost over 70lbs. One day she realized that people would rather hear dieting advice from someone who's "been there, done that" than a boring old doctor who's never been fat a day in his life. So she started the website Better Off Fat to share her experiences and ideas.

Halloween - Trick Or Treat?

Where did Halloween come from? Halloween originated from an ancient Celtic harvest festival, in Ireland and ancient Britain, when the spirits of the dead were thought to revisit their homes in the forms of ghosts, goblin, demon and witches.

In the 9th century, the Catholic church observed November 1st as "All Saints Day" on honor of all the saints in heaven and the secular version is celebrated on October 31st became known as "All Hallow's Eve."

How did Halloween come the united States? Halloween was first introduced to the United States in the last century by Irish immigrants as a secular occasion for trick-or-treating and making mischief.

Trick-or-Treating: The practice of dressing up in costumes and begging for candy from door to door goes way back to the Middle Ages. This resembles the medieval practice of "souling" when poor people would go door to door receiving food in return for prayers for the dead.

Why do we wear Halloween costumes? This tradition is called guising because off all of the disguises worn by children in Scotland and northern England. This practice like trick-or treating only arose in the twentieth century.

Candy Apples a favorite treat: Because the holiday comes in the wake of the annual apple harvest, candy apples (also known as toffee, taffy or caramel apples) are a common Halloween treat. Apples are rolled in a sticky sugar syrup and sometimes rolled in nuts.

Religious perspective: In Ireland, Halloween is far more traditional with cultural and historical significance than in the United States. In North America, Christian attitudes are quite diverse. Some consider Halloween to be completely incompatible with the Christian faith and offer an alternative to Halloween as a fall or harvest festival.

To see crazy costumes people wear during Halloween, visit Halloween: Trick-or-Treat

Wednesday, 15 October 2008

Halloween - History of Trick Or Treat

Halloween is celebrated every year on October31st. The history of trick or treat and the origin of this holiday has been traced back to 5th century BC, in Ireland.

The Romans adopted the celebration in approximately the first century AD. It was incorporated in with two different Roman traditions that also took place in October. As the belief in spirit possession lessened, the practice of dressing in costume took on a more ceremonial role.

Halloween was introduced to the United States by European immigrants in the 1840's. They brought with them various holiday traditions and customs. The act of celebrating Halloween was greatly limited during this time because of rigid religious beliefs.

Our distinctly American version of Halloween was a merger of sorts between the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups, as well as those of the American Indian, thus providing our history of trick or treat. The early celebrations were public events held to celebrate the harvest. Neighbors gathered and would share tales of the dead, repeat ghost stories, and tell each other fortunes.

The Irish immigrants helped to popularize the celebration nationally. Extracting from the traditions of the Irish and English, early Americans began to dress up in costume. They would go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that was to become today's trick or treat.

By the middle of the twentieth century, this holiday had evolved into a celebration directed mostly at children. The entire community became involved with the trick or treaters. It was a relatively inexpensive form of entertainment and fun.

Families could, in theory, also prevent from being tricked by providing small treats for the neighborhood children. A tradition was born from the efforts of our ancestors using centuries old customs and practices.

This holiday has continued to grow and now is not restricted to small children. The parties and celebrations today include children of all ages - adults included. Halloween is the second largest commercial holiday in the United States.

Men, women, and children in every disguise imaginable are today participating in parades, attending costume parties, and wearing disguises to the work place. Many individuals decorate both their homes and their yards for this ghostly time of year. For more information on Halloween, the history of trick or treat, costumes to wear for Halloween, and ideas for decorations, follow this link to Everything Halloween.