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Halloween History Lesson

Written by freddyk
Tuesday, 08 June 2010 03:47
17 Comments

The History of Halloween
It’s almost that time again. Things are about to go bump in the night. Spook masters would have you believe that the dead actually walk the earth on that day, but Halloween is as much a matter of shadows and mirrors as the horror movies we watch. For anyone interested, here is a history of the modern day holiday known as Halloween.

First of all, it was called All Hallows Eve. We are not speaking of Sleepy Hollow. Hallow means holy, like in The Lord’s Prayer for all the Sunday schoolers out there. Early pagan religions specifically the Celts would celebrate different phases of the earth. One such festival was Samhain. It is pronounced “saw-in.” it was a festival that commemorated the lives of the dead. There was nothing wrong with this, except that they didn’t discriminate between the “good” dead and the “bad” dead. People remembered all of the dead. The date that this festival fell on was October 31st.

Isn’t sounding too scary so far is it? Well, you must remember that early pagan religions were prone to superstition as in the Middle Ages. They were afraid of spirits and the thought of them returning to the human world frightened them.

As history goes, during this time, priests of the religion would contact these spirits to divine the future of the harvest as this was also harvest season. People’s livelihood depended on those crops and they were afraid that the spirits would curse them and destroy the crops.

The church decided to combat such superstition by adding a bit of Christianity to the occasion. They moved the celebration of All Saints Day from March 13th to November 1st. People would hopefully be less scared and more into the Christian celebration than the pagan one. Everyone didn’t change their long held beliefs however. People would cover their faces with masks when they went out at night in hopes that any roaming spirits would recognize them as fellow travelers and suspend their mischief. They also used large carved turnips with candles inside as lanterns.

All Hallows Eve became Halloween in modern times. Instead of walking through the veil between this world and the next, kids dress in a variety of costumes to scare each other silly and get a bit of candy in the process. The only spirits around on Halloween are the ones we create on the movie set. Well, maybe…

Tags: Spook, All Hallows Eve, Nothing, Sleepy, Halloween History
 

Ideas For Halloween Face Painting

Written by freddyk
Monday, 11 October 2010 13:00
11 Comments

Halloween is fun both for adults and young kids. If you’ve enjoyed painting pumpkins with your family and friends, you will surely enjoy face painting during this special occasion. You can scare the wits out of young kids and even adults if you paint scary faces once they knock on your door and ask the same old line – ‘trick or treat‘.

Here are some excellent ideas for Halloween face painting.

Pumpkin – you can paint a pumpkin on both sides of your cheeks. The pumpkin should be bright orange in color. The nose, mouth, and eyes can be painted in black. The outline and ridges of pumpkin design should be light grey.

If you want, you can make your whole face look like a pumpkin. The base should be orange and for the cheekbones, you have to apply a darker shade of orange. Make a triangle shape over your eyes and paint it black. For your lips and nose, you must paint it black as well.

Skull – the skull design should occupy the whole face. The base should be white and after you’ve painted the white paint, you can paint a bright red color for the lips. Make an outline of fangs on both sides of your mouth in light grey. The fill should be white and the tip should be painted in red so that it will look like blood. Use smoky grey for the eye lids and exaggerate your eye brows with sweeping strokes in black color.

Bat – make a bat design over your whole face. Just like the skull design, use white color as base. Above your nose and your forehead, paint the face of the bat in black and light grey for the eyeballs. The body of the bat should be painted over your nose ending at the nostril’s base. Use different shades of black for the body. The wings cover your eyes and your mid-cheek. You can paint some definitions by using light grey on the wings. Over your lips, paint exaggerated curls upward to the corners. Use your imagination and you can create a realistic bat design.

These are just four great ideas that you can use. if you want, you can obtain other painting ideas online. There are many helpful websites you can visit to get some great ideas for Halloween face painting. Visit the different sites and if you’re diligent with your search, you can find pictures of the designs. With a picture to refer to, it will be a lot easier to paint because you already have a clear idea of what the design will look like. Find a design that you like so that it will be easier to paint.

You can even paint your own face if you like, but this will a bit difficult. Get the whole family involved and paint each other’s face. But before anything else, you have to buy face paints, paint brushes, and other painting materials that you will need. You can purchase them in paint stores or in craft stores.

Celebrate Halloween with your family and friends. Give life to this special occasion by doing some face painting. Just remember to wash the paint off your face before you go to sleep to avoid any irritations. Have fun this Halloween season by painting your face in different designs.

Tags: fun, diligent, Online, smoky, triangle
 

Halloween Cooking Ideas

Written by freddyk
Monday, 11 October 2010 12:00
5 Comments

Whether you are cooking for a feast of adults for Halloween or looking for some great kid approved recipes there are plenty of resources online for some excellent spooky recipes for All Hallows Eve. There are some basic rules that will help the meal preparation and presentation go a little more smoothly if you’ll follow them. Hopefully that advice below will help you get through your spook fest and enjoy a great dinner too.

Most people who have a huge Halloween party will find that they will be interrupted throughout the evening with trick or treaters seeking the perfect treat. While we want to enjoy the ghosts, goblins, kings, and princesses gracing our stoop we also do not want to burn the food we are working hard to prepare. For this reason we need to select foods that require little attention during the preparation process rather than foods that are quite time consuming and attention demanding.

Crock pots are a blessing to have around on a night like Halloween. You can begin the food cooking well before the little goblins begin their appointed rounds and have the dishes you’ve prepared kept warm while you’re waiting for guests to arrive or doling out treats at your front door, whatever the necessity of the moment may be. You can even cook normal favorites in the crock pot or cook them on the stove and use the crock pot to keep them warm.

Some excellent spooky crock pot ideas include spaghetti brains. Prepare the sauce and the noodles ahead of time separately. Mix the sauce in the noodles and keep them warming together in the crock pot. Meatball eyes are another crock pot favorite. Stuff the meatballs with one stuffed olive eyeball and place in spaghetti sauce. Bat wings (which are actually chicken wings) with your favorite sauce are also excellent in the crock pot. Sloppy Joes can also be prepared and stored in the crock pot then served open faced over buns with small triangle cheese slices for eye and a pickle for eyeballs and a large triangle of cheese for the mouth.

Another great Halloween cooking idea is to prepare as much as possible ahead of time. There are all kinds of frightening and ghastly goodies that can be made ahead of time and stored for the big day. Make your spooky offerings such as dips that can be made cold and used for veggies, which can also be chopped ahead of time, can be made ahead of time and stored in the fridge for the big day. Cookies can be baked and decorated and stored in advance. Devilled egg white mice can be made earlier in the day and stored in the fridge on waxed paper.

The Internet is full of great recipe ideas for delicious and devious Halloween desserts, snacks, and treats. There are far too many to try them all. However, if you have favorite foods that are easy to prepare and a good party food you might want to search the net for a manner of making the food more appropriate to a Halloween theme. You can make your own pizza a little spookier by decorating it in a manner that is spooky or painting pictures, such as a jack o lantern face with pizza sauce. There are plenty of things you can do to raise the fear factor even on family favorites if you use a little creativity and give it a fancy name (like spaghetti brains).

The most important thing about Halloween as a holiday is that it gives children of all ages the perfect excuse to use their imaginations and play pretend. The food you cook doesn’t have to be too terribly spooky in order to be a perfect fit for the theme of the day. A few simple adjustments, a little dash of food color, and a lot of imagination can make any meal so much more Halloween worthy in the end.

Tags: attention, halloween party, Cooking, Meatball, sloppy joes
 

Presented by Freddy Kruger

Halloween History Lesson