It’s Samhain, the holiday that kicked off the “dark” half of the Celtic year and marked the absolute end of both summer and the harvest. Samhain got overlaid with a Christian veneer and made into All Souls Day (check out that holiday’s origins: “Hey, I can hear the groans of souls in purgatory coming through the rocks!”), which in turn spawned Halloween, due to the Catholic church’s custom of thinking days began in the evening–hence, the night before All Souls Day was when the festival itself started.
Personally, I haven’t been excited for Halloween since I was Rainbow Brite 20 years ago but I know there are lots of adults who still enjoy it. And it gets me a free lunch at work and at least an hour away from my desk for the costume contest, so I can’t really complain.
Unlike me, alpacas love to dress up:
This is Bull, a stud at Blue Moon Ranch, in his bull costume. (Alpacas aren’t picky about their horns, I guess.)
October 31, 2007 @ 11:02 am
OH MY GOD I said “know heart” instead of “no heart”….I am getting stupider by the second…must be all these people in wacky costumes here at school….
October 31, 2007 @ 11:01 am
You mean you’re making Bob Crachet work late on Halloween? But he was going to take his kids trick-or-treating!
Have you know heart?
P.S. – cooking with pumpkins counts (some).
October 31, 2007 @ 10:53 am
Sigh. I hate to be the Halloween Scrooge, but carving pumpkins doesn’t do much for me, either.
I do like to cook with the pumpkins, though–does that count?
October 31, 2007 @ 10:06 am
You know you love the craftiness involved in making a jack-o-lantern.