Livin' Life, Lovin' Life: Halloween October 31st

Halloween

celebrated each year on October 31, is a mix of ancient Celtic practices, Catholic and Roman religious rituals and European folk traditions that blended together over time to create the holiday we know today. Straddling the line between fall and winter, plenty and paucity and life and death, Halloween is a time of celebration and superstition. Halloween has long been thought of as a day when the dead can return to the earth, and ancient Celts would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off these roaming ghosts.

The Celtic holiday of Samhain, the Catholic Hallowmas period of All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day and the Roman festival of Feralia all influenced the modern holiday of Halloween. In the 19th century, Halloween began to lose its religious connotation, becoming a more secular community-based children's holiday. Although the superstitions and beliefs surrounding Halloween may have evolved over the years, as the days grow shorter and the nights get colder, people can still look forward to parades, costumes and sweet treats to usher in the winter season . History.com/Halloween

Halloween...an exciting and thrilling day for kids and the young at heart! Candy corn, caramel apples, candied apples, pumpkins,trick-or-treating,ghost and goblins. I was lucky enough to be born on October 31st, and always got to have double the fun! Mother always planned the perfect celebration for me , never letting my birthday get over looked!

Me and my niece Jessica

Allen, Chris and Lacy: Halloween 1994

As kids, trick-or-treating was on the top of our list for an exciting time. Careful selection of a costume came first. Should I paint my face and where old clothes and go as a hobo, or do I want one of those plastic formed mask with a rubber band and rubber outfit? Now I need to select the candy holder...possibly a little orange plastic pumpkin, a fancy plastic bag with handles, or just dig out an old brown paper grocery sack or much stronger pillow case. We quickly find out that the pillow case held much more candy with out ripping. Banding together with your "bestest" buddies , we all venture out into the neighborhood to find our bounty of goodies! For hours we would wander from door to door, neighborhood to neighborhood knocking on every door that would open! When we finally have exhausted all our means for sugar, we skip towards our homes to inspect the treasures we had collected. I remember sitting on our hard wood floor with my sister and brother and dumping our candy out into our own piles. Next as we sifted through the sweet mound, we would trade for our favorites among each other. I NEVER liked the black and orange Mary Janes...and still dont!

Me, Allen and Heather Haloween 1982

As I grew older and was blessed with my son Allen, I tried to share the traditions I had with him. When he was just a baby , a simple painted face, was sufficient for trick-or-treating. The next few years he bounced back and forth between painted faces and store bought costumes.

I still have his first costume...a Donald Duck mask with the rubber pull on suit...

and a few years later he chose to be Thundar from Thunder Cats. He was so precious to watch as he and his cousins would travel door to door .

My sister and I would take them to many of our own places in our old neighborhood.
Many of the people who had given us candy as a child were now giving our children the same.

Me and my husband John 1993
Kmart Haunted House

Over the years, celebrations at work were included haunted houses and carnivals! Our haunted houses were just a blast!!! Putting our "BRILLIANT" minds together, we rolled out a pretty decent haunt for the public to raise money for Cereal Palsy.

Kmart Haunted House 1993:

Carnival 2009

Over the past couple of years we have held Halloween carnivals. It's such fun to do and the local children seem to really enjoy all the freebies! Games,contests, a cake walk, face painting,costumes and LOTS of candy and cupacakes! The kids have a ball and we employees love having chance to dress up and act like kids ourselves!