Hey Blog! Woooooo, it\u2019s the Hallowe\u2019en special!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We all know this slightly creepy and dangerous time of year. The one where pumpkins are highly priced in shops, sweets for trick-or-treaters are at a premium, and piles of single-use plastic tat in the shape of skulls, bones, spiders, assorted undead and other evil creatures fill the shelves\u2026 Oh, so you don\u2019t think of it like that? Well, all festivals have these piles of tat during them \u2013 most of which are only used for one year. It\u2019s very wasteful. And fake cobwebs snare birds, and pollutes if it flies away in an October gale. But the other side of Hallowe\u2019en is spooky and mysterious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Few people continue to use the apostrophe which reveals its past \u2013 as All Hallow\u2019s Eve, the eve of All Saints\u2019 Day. But this Christian festival is only one in a long line of festivals of this type that have been going on in October for a very long time. The Dia de los Muertos, better known as the Day of the Dead, is a Mexican festival where the ancestors rise again. Samhain is a pagan festival where fires are lit, also at this time of year. There are Indian festivals as well at this time. The Chinese have a ghost month (though it\u2019s in August \u2013 still, there\u2019s only September between them). Why do all these celebrations happen at the similar times? Is it something that happened before we spread across the planet and all the different ones used to be the same? Or is it that we all as humans felt the same things at the point in the year? Christmas & midwinter have associate happenings across cultures with it too. So has midsummer. Your guess is as good as mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hallowe\u2019en traditions include putting out pumpkins and revering the dead. The latter is more international, but the former is definitely a western culture. It comes from the jack-o-lanterns which scared away evil spirits. However, if you go on the theory that the gates to the land of the dead are open, there are good ghosts as well as bad ghosts there, so don\u2019t get too scared. However, if it\u2019s the gates of hell<\/em>, as in the Chinese folklore, then yes there\u2019s only bad ghosts in there!<\/p>\n\n\n\n More recently, it\u2019s changed a lot. From a veiled, ghostly day, it\u2019s now commercialised and is all about the parties. There are occasional reminders of the spooky side. For example, famous conjuror Harry Houdini died on Hallowe\u2019en and has reportedly been trying to send a message from the dead ever since, if it\u2019s possible. He hasn\u2019t managed it yet. You-know-who (at least, if you\u2019ve read Harry Potter<\/em> you know) killed Harry\u2019s parents on the 31st<\/sup> of October. Nearly everything has a Hallowe\u2019en special around this time \u2013 including, it seems, Home Ed in a Shed!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Which is a good way to round off this post. Watch out for witches, warlocks, flying gremlins, pumpkins, scarecrows, ghosts, skeletons, vampires, etc. and have a happy Hallowe\u2019en!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hey Blog! Woooooo, it\u2019s the Hallowe\u2019en special! We all know this slightly creepy and dangerous time of year. The one where pumpkins are highly priced in shops, sweets for trick-or-treaters are at a premium, and piles of single-use plastic tat in the shape of skulls, bones, spiders, assorted undead and other evil creatures fill the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home-ed-in-a-shed-2"],"yoast_head":"\n