Halloween is coming..eck!!

Halloween is definitely one of the most funnies times of the year! You get to dress up, scare your friends and eat lots of candy and chocolate. Most of us will be attending many events in and around the neighborhood, or at a friend’s houses, where for one night only, you can decorate your venue to look as disgusting as possible, and also serving horrible looking food – just as long as it tastes nice!  So whatever you get up to this Halloween, let your hair down and have a great night! Happy Halloween!

WHAT ARE WE DOING THIS YEAR?

This year The Grape Vine Events will be planning a family Halloween party, which we are particularly excited about! Mainly as we get to decorate another person’s house, trash it, and make it look as disgusting and scary as we like! The family want a party suitable for adults and children, with games  such as apple bobbing and jack-o-lanterns carving, and of course there will be a prize for the best costume!

HISTORY

Although Halloween is a great, fun holiday, many of us do not know why we actually celebrate Halloween. However this holiday dates back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). Around  2000 years ago during the time of The Celtics, (from Ireland, UK and Northern France) the New Year was celebrated on November 1^st. They believed this day symbolized the end of summer and the start of the dark, cold winters, which back then was associated with higher mortality rates. During the festival, people would light bon fires and wear costumes to ward off evil spirits.

The Roman Empire ruled most of Celtic Territory by around 43 AD. One of the festivals they celebrated at this time of year was to honor Pomona, the goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is an apple, where it is believed that this is where the tradition of ‘bobbing for apples’ comes from, which is still played at Halloween parties today.

Around the eighth century, Pope Gregory III declared November 1^st All Saints Day, a day to honor the saints and martyrs. The night before was named All Hallows’ Eve, which over time evolved to what we now know as Halloween.

On the night before the New Year, it was believed that the boundary between the living world and the dead becomes blurred, where ghosts could return to earth to cause trouble and damage crops. The Celts also thought that whilst the spirits were here, Druids (Celtic priests) could make predictions about the future. People would generally find these predictions a great deal of comfort during the cold, dark winter months.

By 1000 AD the church made 2^nd November All Souls’ Day to honor the dead. The day was celebrated with big bonfires, parades and wearing fancy dress costumes such as the devil, saints and angles. This would probably explain why today we dress up in scary ghoulish outfits.

Today’s Halloween celebrations are much more fun! It has now evolved into a secular holiday and more child-friendly holiday, where families’ friends and communities get together to throw spooky parties, play games and children go trick-or-treating.

WHAT TO WEAR?

The aim is to look as scary, ghoulish, deathly, or downright disgusting as possible. It is also a goodtime to trash the popular looking dress up characters, such as cheerleader to a dead cheerleader, or bride, or a dead bride covered in blood, ECT. Here are some examples: 

• Vampire 

• Witch 

• The Devil 

• Evil Bride 

• A Ghost 

• Skeleton 

• Werewolf 

• Frankenstein 

• The Grim Reaper 

• A Zombie 

• Scarecrow 

• A Mummy 

• A Dead Nurse 

  Or popular horror film characters such as:

• Freddy Kruger 

• Jason from Friday 13th 

• ‘IT’ the Clown 

• Jack from The Nightmare before Christmas 

• Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas 

• Uncle fester from the Addams Family 

• The Scream Mask Character 

HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS

To make sure you throw a great Halloween party that’s one to remember, you will need to have great decorations! You want your guests to be wowed yet scared at the same time, as they arrive at your home.

To get your creative juices flowing, here are some ideas in how to decorate your home. 

• Place pumpkins with candles or torches inside them so that in the dark, they glow and look spooky! 

• If you have any tree’s in you’re front or back garden – even better – place scary looking lanterns, or hanging skeletons, or ghouls from the tree’s. 

• Like size cut outs of skeletons, or ghosts hanging the ceiling also look particularly effective 

• Rubber or plastic spiders, bugs, snacks, skulls 

• Scene setters – great to stick on the wall! These can come in different types of scene’s for Halloween such as: Ghosts, rows of skeletons, haunted house scene, pumpkin fields, zombie scene’s 

• Hanging garlands such as rows of pumpkins or skulls, or just simply saying ‘Happy Halloween’ 

• Hanging cobweb curtains 

• Window stickers such as blood stickers 

• Glow in the dark stickers, or hanging decorations such as skeletons, spiders, zombies 

• Food displayed in large eye ball bowls, skeleton heads or in purple, orange and black 

• Also stick to Halloween colours such as black, orange, green and purple!

So whatever you get up to this Halloween, I hope you have a great night and make sure this is one to remember!

See you next week, where we will be blogging about our Halloween antics!