Hallowtide: Part 1 – Halloween (All Hallows Eve or All Saints’ Eve)

This is Part I of a 2-Part series of posts about the triduum of Hallowtide, and how we celebrate it:
1. Halloween  (All Saints’ Eve),  2. All Saints’ Day and 3. All Souls’ Day.

Essentially, over the course of these 3 days, we, the Catholic/Western Christians, remember our dead. We say prayers for the souls in Purgatory, we celebrate the lives of the saints, and we remember that Christ conquered death, with His own death on the cross, ultimately offering us life thereafter. In that light, death is not something to be so afraid of. But rather a point in time in which we cross over, to hopeful and glorious new life, with Christ. And during this time of specific opportunity known as Hallowtide, we remember and pray for the souls currently at that crossover.

Hallowtide is always a festive 3 day event in our family.  We love this time of year, and very much enjoy our traditions, which I suppose differs a little bit from the vast majority.  I think we have a nice balance though.   We have fun with ‘Halloween’ and the silliness/just-for-fun that comes with that, while also giving attention to the historic Catholic roots of ‘Halloween’, and how it all began. Thus, our more extended focus on the 3 days of Hallowtide.

Just to note:  One Halloween tradition we do not participate in is Trick-or-Treating.  We don’t feel there is anything wrong with anybody doing that traditional activity on Halloween of course, but we personally don’t for a few reasons:  The most important being {S}’s severe peanut allergy.  There is just no way to make it 100% safe, and it’s sure not worth the risk to his life for us, one bit.  Secondly, we hardly eat candy. And lastly, we don’t have a great neighborhood for that anyway>  Not only do we not have sidewalks, but we only know our immediate neighbors, who do not have kids, and they don’t get any trick-or-treaters (nor do we) because we live on a dead-end with 1 street light. (That’s scary, alright. LOL.)  So years ago, we began the tradition of our own little party, which the kids enjoy planning and participating in more than I could ever tell you. (I think the photos over the years  speak volumes!). Needless to say, we haven’t bothered with costumes in recent years either.  But we do have a tradition of designing fun Halloween shirts that Daddy makes! (It’s just vinyl cut out and applied, and we peel off later. )

This year however, started out our festivities with a break from our own tradition, by accepting the thoughtful invitation to some friends for a pre-party, party!  These friends REALLY love Halloween, and the hostess is uber-creative!! We enjoyed a few hours with our good and long-time friends (3 generations 0f them), as well as some new friends.  We all had a blast, and then we came home and partied some more!

Here are the kids showing off their Halloween shirt this year, and ready for a long night of partying!

Sorry about the glare on {O}’s shirt there.  And yes, {J} does still have a right hand. lol  (I just noticed that. lol)
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{A} got extra -creative with her shirt idea-front and back!
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The kids and some of their friends on the very popular trampoline.  (No one was hurt in this jumping jamboree, despite the number of kids.  They were pretty careful of each other. Perhaps because of my 93 reminders.)
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Our little wild-man, {S}, taking advantage of no other kids in the trampoline.
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We brought this cake we made to the party too, with the spider inspired from {A}’s shirt design.  Our hosts were overly-impressed, but we loved them for it. lol.  It’s chocolate cake, with butter cream frosting. (I know some of you cake-lovers were seriously wondering! ; )
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When we got home, we kicked off our own party.  We started with some more eating.
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Just some simple picking food, with a little creepy thrown in!
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Earlier in the day, {A} had made these ‘Cleopatra Centipedes”, out of breadstick dough, red licorice and black piping.  Reason being, we come across the occasional ‘Cleopatra’ downstairs in our house, and they are indeed creepy and scary!  They freak us all out.  Yes, even Michael.  Don’t let him tell you otherwise.
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These look rather harmless though, don’t they?  lol
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The small feast in progress.  After this photo, I had a little too.  But really, I picked a lot at the pre-party party.  I was pretty all set.
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After dinner, the kids played ‘Donuts on a String‘.  Michael had originally thought of bobbing for apples, but I said to him, “Umm…the kids hardly have any front teeth right now!”  He was like “Oh yeah.”  (That would be a long game, huh? lol).  My friend suggested Donuts on a String instead, and it was a hit!  Of course, those are our home-made donuts we pulled out of the freezer and defrosted.

(Now here comes something rare….photos of ME in a post….I set up camera for {A}.)

Now I was doing ok at first, but I can tell you….I’m not the partier my kids are!!  I was fading FAST!
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I tried to fake it and put on my best-having fun face for awhile, but really….

Is it bedtime, yet? I’m a lousy faker at anything. I was so giddy and T I R E D, and thinking mostly about my bed relatively soon into our own party.
But I hung on for my kiddos, who had an absolute blast, until we went to bed very late!

Hope your Halloween was ‘all that and a bag of…..candy?’  : )   Want to see more of our Hallowtide?
You can check out Part II, All Saint’s Day and All Souls Day, HERE.

BOO! to you….and yours.

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