Its time to get those witch hats and vampire fangs out! Its Halloween people!! The time the year, inevitably as always, has arrived when the line between the dead and the living becomes the thinnest. As we speak, there are thousands of other people around the world right at this moment(well, that depend upon those ruddy time zones!) gathering together to go trick or treating, partying with other people dressed as outrageously as they are, and daring each other to break into alleged haunted houses.
Halloween is a much awaited festival when people around the world go gallivanting around sporting the weirdest of costumes and hair (for which they don’t need a festival by the way!). It’s a time of the year when the word normal takes a backseat and makes way for planchetts and pumpkins. But what makes Halloween so special? Lets take a look folks!
Pumpkins- It’s safe to say that Halloween without pumpkins is not Halloween! The joy of carving a pumpkin with your family or friends is just incomparable. one can say that pumpkins and Halloween are inseparable as pumpkins form an iconic part of Halloween celebrations carving Besides even if you couldn’t carve it properly it wouldn’t make much of a difference. It’s a pumpkin, so carving out even just its eyes with a misshapen mouth is creepy enough.
Jack-o-lanterns- Named after the phenomenon of strange lights flickering over the peat bogs, a jack-o-lantern a pumpkin into which a monstrous face has been carved with a light placed inside it to give it the effect of a lantern.
Trick or treat!- The most important and treasured aspect of Halloween when it is considered just fine to go around pestering people to give them candy or else face the dire consequences. In North America, trick-or-treating has been a customary Halloween tradition since the late 1940s, starting in Anoka, Minnesota. Children in costumes travel from house to house in order to ask for treats such as candy with the question “Trick or treat?”. The “trick” is a (usually idle) threat to perform mischief on the homeowners or their property if no treat is given to them.
Ducking for apples- This traditional Halloween game which includes taking three scooped out apples into which is placed a ring, a button and a dime, is not only hilarious but also an apparent way to find ones life partner(or so they say!). These denote fortune, marriage and single blessedness. Mix these apples in a large tub with as many others as will fit. Players try without the use of hands to secure an apple in their mouth. Everyone must then pare their apples, trying not to break the paring strip. The apple paring is thrown over the left shoulder and is then said to form the first initial of the partner’s life mate. Warning: This may prove to be controversial if played with friends.
Food!-Colcannon, apple cake and barm brack, as well as apples and nuts are part of the festive fare. Colcannon is cooked in a skillet pot which has a large round bottom, three little legs and two ear-like handles at the sides, and consisted of potatoes mashed and mixed with chopped kale or green cabbage and onions…Another favorite is champ, an Armagh name for a dish of mashed potatoes, sweet milk, and chopped chives or onions, eaten like colcannon by dipping each spoonful into the well of butter.
So, this Halloween let loose all your inhibitions! Indulge in every crazy, spooky Halloween tradition ever invented. Crave out pumpkins with weird expressions, light up the jack-o-lanterns, terrorize the neighborhood, look for your soul mate through silly games and of course treat your taste buds to some of the most fantastic traditional Halloween dishes ever! Happy Halloween!!
