When Halloween night comes you are going to want to have some great Halloween yard decorations out in your front yard. The children are all going to be walking past your yard to get to the steps and get candy after all, so why not impress them with some great Halloween yard decoration?
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From the beautiful changing color of the leaves to the carpet of leaves that blanket the ground, from the crisp chill in the air to the warm cups of hot chocolate – everything points to that exciting day for kids and adults alike – Halloween! You know what that means – baby Halloween costumes!
When the time of year rolls around where ghouls and goblins will be coming out to celebrate, you are guaranteed to be surrounded by a whole bunch of treats that are not as healthy as your diet may require. If you have young children, you may let them have some sweets during this holiday, but you can still limit the amount of sugar that they take in by offering up a variety of healthier Halloween treats. As a matter of fact, with just a little bit of imagination, you should be able to surround your entire family with healthy treat options all October long!
If you have the time and you would like to create some of your own healthy Halloween treats, then you might want to look in some of your favorite magazines or even online for great recipes. There are a number of cookies that you can bake up or even create your own candied fruits in shapes that will help you celebrate the festive Halloween season. Of course, popcorn is always one of those holiday staples that you can use to snack on or even shape into popcorn balls to give out as treats or pack up for your kids as a healthy snack option.
Do you plan on throwing a memorable Halloween party for your children or even some of your adult friends? If so, then you can put your imagination to work while creating healthier treat options that everyone will enjoy. Instead of serving sodas, think about flavorful punch created with juices! You can even freeze plastic bugs and creepy crawlies into ice cubes for a nice touch that everyone will be talking about.
When it comes to Halloween inspired foods and treats, you may want to think of making a pasta dish with rigatoni and a tomato based sauce. As you serve it up for a dinner treat near Halloween or even at a theme party out of a crock pot, make sure that you tell everyone to take a heaping helping of your creation called “Riga-Boney”! You can even follow up with a dessert of a jell-o mold with mixed in fruit that you chilled inside of a mold that is shaped like a giant brain for an extra touch!
Halloween is a fun holiday that is filled with plenty of options for treats and celebration. All you have to do is use your imagination and put your creative spin on the treats that you provide to your family. With a creative twist, you can come up with plenty of healthier Halloween treats that everyone will love.
Halloween has been touted as the time when the undead decide they want to come back and visit. There is no bigger undead celebrity than the vampire. Armed with gleaming white fangs and a thirst for all things thick and red, vampires are a popular attraction on Halloween.
What is the basis for the vampire craze? Well, most of what we know came from the book by Bram Stoker. Through science and fiction, he was able to create a character of timeless quality. This is where most myths become immortal. Add a touch of truth to a lot of make believe and you get a concept that people won’t soon forget.
There was once an evil ruler named Vlad the Impaler, a Romanian prince. He was a cruel man, using torture and murder to subdue his victims. He was in perpetual war with the Turks and disposed of his enemies in gruesome ways. His moniker, Impaler, was well earned.
There is no evidence that this man had fangs or drank blood, but the name Dracula was applied to him. It was most likely an association with a knightly order, but his cruel ways perpetuated many myths.
Vampires are thought to be created by other vampires when bitten. Just enough of the blood is taken to turn the victim into one of the undead or the body is drained to kill them. The bloodlust of a vampire is so great that they must kill, or feed, on a regular basis.
There have been vampire chases throughout movies and books. They use garlic, wooden stakes, and holy water to damage their prey. The biggest vampire killer however is sunlight. As the undead, they dwell in darkness. Any light turns them into ash.
Europeans based their beliefs in vampires on folklore and stories of vampire bats. The fear of someone sucking their blood and turning them into an abomination of God frightened them into believing almost anything and doing even more to prevent it from happening to them.
On the American front, vampires are thought to be more sexual than sadistic. They still drink blood, but their dealings with humans are more for pleasure. Unlike witches who use animals as familiars, vampires use humans to do their bidding.
If this sounds familiar, you’ve probably seen one or all of the Blade Trilogy movies. Hollywood has scripted most of the modern day beliefs about vampires and Halloween. Demons or deformed gargoyles scare us, but vampires are beautiful and cool so they don’t scare as much on Halloween. Instead, they make a fashion statement.
Going out into the ghoulish night to troll for candy is not as innocent as it seems. It should be but it is not. Parents and children alike want to enjoy their bit of frightful fun without real dangers lurking around every corner. Here are some safety tips to accomplish that task.
1. Begin trick or treating during the daylight. It used to be that everyone waited until dark for greater effect. Unfortunately, there are those who want to cause trouble and can only do so after dark. Now, trick or treating begins at dusk even if the sun is not down.
2. For smaller children, drive instead of walk. The concept is the same as far as kids are concerned. Their friends will still see their costume and they still receive candy. As the night wears on it may get cold and little feet get tired quite quickly. A car means a faster exit when everyone is too tired to go on.
3. Check the candy before letting any be eaten. It is a safety precaution that protects the kids. Not everyone is out to harm children but there have been incidents in the past where blades and pins were found in candy.
4. Stick together. Never let a child go trick or treating alone. If you can’t do it, entrust your child’s care to another adult friend. Let them walk a few feet ahead to feel independent but not so far that they are out of your sight.
5. Choose costumes that fit properly. Wherever possible, use homemade costumes or non-toxic paint to replace store bought masks. Most masks are too hot and don’t provide an adequate visual field. Kids who can’t see where they are going can trip and fall.
6. Refrain from taking homemade candy and treats. Even schools don’t accept homemade food items anymore. It is too easy to get sick and the liability is high. Homemade candy apples look scrumptious, but there is no list of ingredients to tell you what was used to create them. Stick to prepackaged candy for children to eat.
7. Use a cloth shopping bag to hold the candy. Plastic bags can buckle under the weight of the haul and your child could lose their loot on the front step or in the street. Plastic pumpkins don’t hold as much candy and the strap can break with the same results as a plastic bag.
Trick or treat is a fun Halloween night tradition designed to scare us silly. In the process, don’t forget to take precautions so everyone is safe.
Many of us have uttered those words or ones like them since we were old enough to wear a costume. Some say cute little rhymes at each house they visit. But, what is the origin of our current candy grabbing tradition on Halloween?
Trick or treating goes back to the celebration of Samhain by the Celts on the British Isles. This pagan festival was one that celebrated nature and its gifts. The practitioners also believed that on that night the boundaries between the living and the dead were compromised and spirits could once again walk the earth.
In an effort to appease the spirits, people would leave offerings of food and drink on their doorsteps. These rituals were thought to protect their harvests for another year. This was also the time for a practice called “souling.”
Souling involved food in exchange for prayers. During the celebration, poor people would take to begging for food from neighbors. This food was granted in exchange for prayers by the receivers for the souls of dead family members.
As the tradition was passed down, the begging became food left for these poor individuals who would continue to pray for the dead. Eventually, children were sent from house to house to receive food or bits of money for the family.
In some countries, the wearing of masks and receiving of gifts is still called “souling.” Small food items or money are still received by children. Trick or treating is a thoroughly modern and American tradition.
When it first started, trick or treating was just that. If a homeowner didn’t provide treats, the costumed person would perform some trick. This could be playing a prank on them or egging the house. In some countries, this is a part of the mischief of the spirits. Any spirit that didn’t receive food was also likely to do something to the person of the house.
Now, kids go from house to house, saying this phrase and receiving a ton of sweet treats. People travel from neighborhood to neighborhood for sweet fare. Tricks are more a part of the fun of the night than a slight against any one person. If a neighbor is not participating, they turn out their porch light so children will know not to approach.
Of course there are those mischief makers that egg houses and cars, but most neighborhoods celebrate Halloween without incident. Even the adults get involved in the celebration with fog machines and costume parties.
So what is the big deal between Halloween and religion? Will one night of candy fun corrupt the soul? This is unlikely, but let us take a look at this ongoing topic of debate.
For many, many years, Halloween has been synonymous with witchcraft and evil. Satan’s one night of the year to claim souls for Hell has been the belief of the church and pious individuals. Those who practice dark arts would have us buy into that belief to keep the Christian world dazed and confused.
Let’s set the record straight. Knowledge is power, especially in this instance. Halloween began as a pagan festival of nature where people tried to appease the dead to prevent their intrusion into the world of the living.
But, we all know about superstitions. There was no distinction between the spirits so folks assumed precautions in case the spirits were bad. Unfortunately, it is the stories about bad spirits that have survived and given the celebration of Halloween a bad name.
In an effort to scare people, tales of the undead have been immortalized in books like Frankenstein and Dracula. Movies brought us Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and the Scream guy. People love to be scared, but so much of the fiction has been confused with fact that Christians have been led to believe that the practice of Halloween is evil for their children.
Basically, children know what we tell them. The truth is always best. There are people who practice earth religions like Wicca and those who profess to be Satanists. They derive their greatest influence and media coverage on this night. Even those groups have been made gorier than they actually are through film and books.
Our children will learn that the practice of dressing up and receiving candy is not evil from the knowledge that we obtain. Spirits are not roaming the streets looking to take over their bodies or mess with their minds. In fact, for little ones, it is essential that we not expose them to the scarier side because they could be traumatized by it and fear the fun side of Halloween.
Christians have nothing to fear from Halloween as long as the truth is told. While there are groups who practice magic (the jury is still out) and contact with the dead, they don’t have exclusive rights on Halloween. They practice their crafts all year round and not just this one night of the year.
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. Watch out!
