Were you ready for Halloween?

LeeBone

We were







Happy Halloween!!

JamesMurray

Great Pics , yup we is ready , jack o lantern lit and on the front step , candy bowls fully loaded with walnuts , milky ways , 3 musketeers and hersheys..but we don't get tirck or treaters ths far out ..MWahahahhaah Happy Halloween

gecko109

Gave away about $40 in candy then turned off the lights and disconnected the door bell. Candy was gone in under an hour! 5 giant bags of fun sized snickers, m&m's, skittles, twix, etc.

PerryHall

Great pics, Lee. Thanks for sharing. We had 21 trick or treaters this year which is about normal for my area.

JamesMurray

The next kids to come to the door saying "trick or treat" , extend your hand palm up saying , "umm..treat please" , its worth it for the look of confusion on their wee gubs hahahhahha

AUandAG

Wow, great pics of the girls!! Lucky man!!

Unfortunately we did not have one trick-or-treater. But, we do live in a retirement community. I give out
or would have given out Ikes, not candy. Just no takers this year!

Here's the real deal:

==========================
IRISH HALLOWEEN TRADITIONS
==========================

The Celts celebrated Halloween as Samhain, 'All Hallowtide' - the 'Feast of the Dead', when the dead revisited the mortal world. The celebration marked the end of Summer and the start of the Winter months.

During the eighth century the Catholic Church designated the first day of November as 'All Saints Day' ('All Hallows') - a day of
commemoration for those Saints that did not havea specific day of remembrance. The night before was known as 'All Hallows Eve' which, over time, became known as Halloween.

Here are the most notable Irish Halloween Traditions:

Colcannon for Dinner: Boiled Potato, Curly Kale (a cabbage) and raw Onions are provided as the traditional Irish Halloween dinner. Clean coins are wrapped in baking paper and placed in the potato for children to find and keep.

The Barnbrack Cake: The traditional Halloween cake in Ireland is the barnbrack which is a fruit bread. Each member of the family gets a slice. Great interest is taken in the outcome as there is a piece of rag, a coin and a ring in each cake. If you get the rag then your financial future is doubtful. If you get the coin then you can look forward to a prosperous year. Getting the ring is a sure sign of impending romance or continued happiness.

The Ivy Leaf: Each member of the family places a perfect ivy leaf into a cup of water and it is then left undisturbed overnight. If, in the morning, a leaf is still perfect and has not developed any spots then the person who placed the leaf in the cup can be sure of 12 months health until the following Halloween. If not.....The Pumpkin: Carving Pumpkins dates back to the 18th century and to an Irish blacksmith named Jack who colluded with the Devil and was denied entry to Heaven. He was condemned to wander the earth but asked the Devil for some light. He was given a burning coal ember which he placed inside a turnip that he had gouged out.

Thus, the tradition of Jack O'Lanterns was born - the bearer being the wandering blacksmith - a damned soul. Villagers in Ireland hoped that the lantern in their window would keep the wanderer away. When the Irish emigrated in their millions
to America there was not a great supply of turnips so pumpkins were used instead.

Halloween Costumes: On Halloween night children would dress up in scary costumes and go house to house. 'Help the Halloween Party' and 'Trick or Treat' were the cries to be heard at each door. This tradition of wearing costumes also dates back to Celtic times. On the special night when the living and the dead were at their closest the Celtic Druids would dress up in elaborate costumes to disguise themselves as spirits and devils in case they encountered other devils and spirits during the night. By disguising they hoped that they would be able to avoid being carried away at the end of the night. This explains why witches, goblins and ghosts remain the most popular choices for the costumes.

Snap Apple: After the visits to the neighbours the Halloween games begin, the most popular of which is Snap Apple. An apple is suspended from a string and children are blindfolded. The first child to get a decent bite of the apple gets to keep their prize. The same game can be played by placing apples in a basin of water and trying to get a grip on the apple without too much mess!

The Bonfire: The Halloween bonfire is a tradition to encourage dreams of who your future husband or wife is going to be. The idea was to drop a cutting of your hair into the burning embers and then dream of you future loved one. Halloween was one of the Celt 'fire' celebrations.

Blind Date: Blindfolded local girls would go out into the fields and pull up the first cabbage they could find. If their cabbage had a substantial amount of earth attached to the roots then their future loved one would have money. Eating the cabbage would reveal the nature of their future husband - bitter or sweet!

Another way of finding your future spouse is to peel an apple in one go. If done successfully the single apple peel could be ropped on the floor to reveal the initials of the future-intended.

Anti-Fairy Measures: Fairies and goblins try to collect as many souls as they can at Halloween but if they met a person who threw the dust from under their feet at the Fairy then they would be obliged to release any souls that they held captive.

Holy water was sometimes anointed on farm animals to keep them safe during the night. If the animals were showing signs of ill health on All Hallows Eve then they would be spat on to try to ward off any evil spirits.

Happy Halloween from Ireland!

baddspellar

From my town's website:
Halloween 2011 - UPDATE - Due to unsafe conditions tonight’s Halloween Trick-or-Treating has been canceled. We will reevaluate conditions late Wednesday to determine if conditions have improved so that we are able to reschedule the celebration for next weekend.

We still have power outages and downed power lines. Bummer.

erickso1

I've had about 10+ kids. It's pretty sparse in my neighborhood. I think a lot of people pile in cars and roam through the bigger (i.e. more prosperous) developments around Austin. I still hear them out there though, so there's still hope.

DoubleEagle59

Not too many on our street.

To keep it coin related, I once ended a whole bunch of Ebay auctions on this evening and boy, did I get burned!!

epcjimi1

Tons-o-kids here in Iowa on Sat. nite. Srsly. Outta control.

To keep it coin related, as a kid back in the early sixties, the couple in the brick house used to give out pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters for treats, and plenty of them. I remember the old man throwing a handful into my bag, "Go buy yourself some candy!". So I did.

Who knows what coins in that era was in my bag. Those were the days. Sigh.

Flatwoods

Just got home from driving the boy around. You wouldn't want to walk where I live.
It would take you thirty minutes to get to the closest neighbor.

My major score was when somebody gave him a Heath bar. He doesn't like those.

Ahhhh the little things.

BAJJERFAN

She was.

derryb

I'm still peeking out the window looking for one dressed like a UPS employee.

Lakesammman

We live on a busy street with long, steep driveways - haven't had a trick or treater in years! Miss it......

Swampboy

I was slammed last year. (Weekend)

Tonight not a one.

I think I'll log in and check out my retirement accounts.
That should be scary!

notwilight

So far relatively light traffic. Usually we have a lot. I've got the front yard decorated with scream masks, skeletons, zombies and skulls. Have a sleeping zombie in the porch swing and they are sure that it is going to get up and scare them...that's the house across the street. I ran a thread to the wind chime and I ring it while they are waiting for me to answer the door. spooks the older ones. young ones don't notice that there is no wind.

--Jerry

WTCG

My place has secured access so none is normal. I've been out on Halloween the last two years (I'm in Miami right now) although I doubt anything has changed. My parents' place usually gets about 15 groups.

Back in the days I always trick-or-treated in my cousin's neighborhood. There it isn't unusual for more than 50 or more groups to show up.

On the plane today I reminisced about the memories of Halloween. The worst houses were the ones (usually older middle-aged women with college age kids) who would answer the door then glumly tell you "I'm sorry children but I don't have any candy to give out.". That was the worst. Either don't answer the door or ask for a trick and maybe, just maybe, they could avoid the orange juice/ ketchup/ toilet paper treatment.

AnkurJ

<< <i>From my town's website:
Halloween 2011 - UPDATE - Due to unsafe conditions tonight’s Halloween Trick-or-Treating has been canceled. We will reevaluate conditions late Wednesday to determine if conditions have improved so that we are able to reschedule the celebration for next weekend.

We still have power outages and downed power lines. Bummer. >>



Same here. Was a bummer for the kids. We went to the mall, but as did everyone else. All of the stores were out of candy.

MaineJim

Took my seven year old out and left a bowl of candy with a lit pumpkin on the porch. We called it quits when one of the kids with us couldn't fit any more candy in her plastic pumpkin bag. As we walked from house to house I could see packs of kids ahead of us running full speed crossing the streets trying to get to as many houses as they could. I was quite surprised when my son fell asleep by 10pm. His candy bag weighed in at pounds.

Jim

edit - oh yea - the bowl we left was about half gone when we got back.

melvin289

I've never had a trick or treater in the 20 years I've lived in my neighborhood. The first couple of years I bought candy and turned on the lights and no one came. I don't bother anymore. I still never see any kids on the street. Only like 20 houses in my neighborhood so they can't get a big enough haul to bother with us.

Ron

pointfivezero

We just turned out the lights......279 (mostly) kids tonight. Just about our average here in the Bay Area, CA

Tim

joecopper

Great pics - we went to granddaughters

ricko

Emptied one big bag of candy then turned out the lights.... Cheers, RickO

Baley

we were almost ready...



just needed shoes

fiveNdime

busy night!

one house had a cotton candy & popcorn machine and a hunted house built across 2 yards.




<< <i>I'm still peeking out the window looking for one dressed like a UPS employee. >>


i think that guy was on the street we were, w/a fed-ex guy no less!

JamesMurray

Tell ya Baley , if i seen the kid on any night it would scare the crap out of me , the bride costume i mean..top points there genuinely good costume

53BKid

Ha! State of Emergency postponed Halloween until Friday here. With 7,700 homes without power in my town, there have to be over ten thousand trees down or severely damaged. School's out, and power won't be restored until Thurs-Sat.!

yellowjacket

In Snow Hill on the lower Eastern Shore of MD, we had over 200 kids in great costumes! The town limits trick-or-treating from 5-8pm and to twelve-and-unders. Great fun.

Garrow

Nic

Yes I was. Barely. Had 300+ trick or treaters from 6-9pm. Hay rides, golf carts, and the parents are scarier than the kids.

Amazing for Florida. It's the old location, location, location thing. My 1st eight years here I had zero.

K

LindeDad

The dark house at the end of the dark road did not get any....But I did have a new roll of Prezzzez bucks in case.
The community center had some kind of party that keeps most of the treaters off the dark streets mostly out here in the woods.

johnny9434

nice pics lee. i wish we had ours but the storm took everything out and a week later were just getting power back glad to see you had a grand time of it best wishes