Halloween

Halloween 2008

This festival has always been very important to my children. In the last twenty years Halloween toot has exploded off the shelves and become mainstream in this country. Now, I'm all in favour of a good celebration and don't mind this too much especially as my eldest has his birthday just a few days later so we have a fine collection of decorations for what became, until recently, his annual Halloween party.

Now that he is getting older a Halloween party doesn't really seem appropriate and having let my youngest have a family party only a couple of weeks ago I'm not inclined to hold another. But both of my boys still love this holiday so I've been wracking my brains for ideas just for us.

I don't like trick or treating. The concept of knocking on a strangers door and asking for sweets just doesn't sit well with me (though friends are fair game). When living in the city we compromised by dressing up our porch and making an event of giving out the sweets instead - very hypocritical of me I know! Thankfully it isn't an issue here as our hamlet is so small and I have no intention of walking my boys along the narrow country lane after dark if we don't need to.

So, how are we celebrating? In the morning some of the decorations will be going up. Having been inspired by a friends blog post I'm going to create a simple potions chest just for the day so that my wizard can mix up drinks for us all. I'm thinking of a couple of juice cartons, a little fizz and food colouring. Perhaps a pack of sweets too or coloured ice cubes, I'll have to see what's already in my larder. I suspect that we'll be baking and make some jelly with some well washed plastic spiders. Let's see if I remember to take photos! At the moment I'm planning on keeping our evening meal simple, worms with meatballs. Eaten by candlelight surrounded by spider webs.