My Halloween Memories - Sepia Saturday

Sepia Saturday gives an opportunity for genealogy bloggers  to share their family history and memories through photographs.  This week's theme is Ghosts,  who we associate with Halloween, so I have chosen to look  back at my own memories of this holiday weekend.  

 

 

Ghostly figures here 

Image by LensPulse from Pixabay 

Halloween was almost a non-event in both my childhood and my daughter’s, as traditions took a long time to reach Britain from across the Atlantic.

 

I can remember, though, a popular children's game we played at Guides in autumn  -  "Apple Dookin"  where we had our hands tied behind our back with a scarf,  and had to kneel at a tub of water to try and grab an apple with our mouths without getting wet.  Another version (still with our hands tied)  was to hang apples on a piece of string and again try to get a bite out of them as they swung too and fro.   

 
Turnips were used to  to create lanterns,   as pumpkins were a rarity here. 

 

  Image courtesy of Pixabay

Witches were always a popular theme  at fancy dress parties throughout the year and my daughter  (and now granddaughter) enjoyed reading the "Worst Witch " books.   As for chants - it was  

Double, double toil and trouble;
     Fire burn and cauldron bubble.  

(As proclaimed by the witches  in  Shakespeare's play "Macbeth").

Image courtesy of Pixabay

Shops here eventually discovered the commercial opportunity from Halloween  and have been  full of orange and black wares, since September.   Where I live, houses with young children have luminous skeletons and witch decorations  in their windows and an occasional pumpkin appears at front doors.   The primary school marks the event with a school disco - in fancy dress of course!

"Trick and Treat" has never caught on much in my experience, with reservations about youngsters knocking on the doors of people they don't know.  In the years we have lived in our present home, only once have we had visitors - two very polite little groups (with mothers in the background), who regaled me  with jokes e.g.  What does the Chinese skeleton order in a restaurant?   Answer:  Spare ribs!! 

What I do love about this time of year are "Pumpkins"! My daughter even gave me a pumpkin candle for my birthday in September.  They are such  lovely,  cheery symbols and I could not stop photographing them when I was in the USA.

We just had to pull into this huge display, so I could take this photograph! 

 A pumpkin dominating this display at Boston market.

 

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Click HERE to find  ghostly tales  from other Sepia Saturday bloggers.

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