Friday 29 October 2010

Halloween

This has absolutely nothing to do with knitting, but I’ve been asked several times recently if we celebrate Halloween here, so I thought I’d give you all a global answer. It’s pretty much no, we don’t really. There is no Samhain or Thanksgiving tradition here to speak of, so there’s nothing to work with really. They do have Carnival, which takes place anywhere from November to February depending on where you are, but it’s not really the same thing. Carnival is more about music and dancing than anything else. Yes, they do dress up in Carnival, but the date varies (I think they like dragging it out so that you always have something fun you can go do during the winter) and it lasts longer. I think it usually lasts about a week in each place instead of just one night. The atmosphere is completely different, so there’s no place for Halloween to get its foot in the door.

They have tried to get it going the last few years, but not with a whole lot of success. Mostly there have just been adult parties, but the kids pretty much just get left out of it. It’s not traditional to go from door to door, so many people feel they’d just be bothering the neighbours if they sent their kids around. Having said that, I guess my boss’ neighbourhood does have a lot of kids who do trick or treat, so he’s laid in a store of candy. I live out in the country where there are, fortunately for my grumpy, cantankerous self, few children. The village children aren’t likely to walk all the way out to our house in any case, so even if it were a tradition, I doubt we’d get many. Anyway, I haven’t actually seen any ads for parties this year, just a few decorations and costumes on sale at the supermarket. Some people do carve pumpkins, but not many. I stopped carving them a few years ago because it’s a lot of work and there’s no one around to enjoy it (I don’t have one in the house, so I don’t even get to admire my own handiwork!)

So no, no Halloween to speak of. I did all my celebrating on Monday when I brought Halloween cookies to work (Christmas cookies cut out like bats, ghosts, cats and skulls and decorated with powered sugar and lemon juice frosting dyed black, orange and white). That’s all she wrote this year I’m afraid.

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for the info - I guess Halloween is getting all trendy in Paris, but what do they know?

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  2. I'm grumpy, too, and therefore hide in my dark house on this night!

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  3. Where has TheBlackSheep been? I can't remember the last time I saw a book review, even...

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