Samhain Celebrations
Last night we celebrated Samhain at our house.
The kids came over around 5, and we had our first course—pumpkin-chicken soup, served in hollowed-out pumpkins–so that Paze and Jeff would have something in their stomaches while they were taking Devon around trick or treating in our neighborhood. There were many pumpkins present. They had carved four of them, each with Jeff-drawn-and-cut faces (the littlest one was supposed to represent Pasley’s unborn little girl expected Dec. 8). I had carved a pumpkin face too. As well, there were 5 little plastic jack o lanterns lit by batteries, two soft cotton, stuffed ones, and a ceramic one. Plus, after Devon was in bed, we lit four candles as part of the ritual.
I had downloaded a ritual from the internet, then had trimmed it, ridding it of extraneous material, so that it was mainly a ceremony for honoring the ancestors. I imagined myself proclaiming the invocations and spells like a mighty witch, but was so tired by the time we sat down for our meal that all I could do was croak; it didn’t help that I was coming down with a bad cold. Still, with everyone’s help reading things, we did the ritual, invoking our ancestors, plus the Crone of Winter (Hecate) and the Lord of the Dead (Hades) to join us.
The meal consisted of roast pork rubbed with rosemary and mint, plus a casserole with potatoes, apples, cider vinegar and bread crumbs in it, plus salad with a mandarin orange-pomegranate seed dressing. For dessert, home made ginger cake with pears and whipped cream.
I had hoped that we could each talk about a dead member of our family, but when I asked Jeff to tell us about his mother, Pasley stopped me and said that was too much to expect. As it turned out, I told them about my dad, then John talked briefly about his dad. Then the conversation went off into matters about music, since John had been talking about how his dad had played classical music so much that it had influenced his (John’s) tastes. And Jeff spoke about his dad’s musical ability and how he was trying to learn to play the guitar.
After eating, we watched A Stir of Echoes, a spooky video that I was glad I had company with me while watching. All in all, it was a nice evening.
Devon looked so beautiful in her princess dress, and she got a lot of loot even in one hour of trick or treating. She was, as usual, very cute this morning in her flannel PJs, when she came into bed with me. (As usual, John fetched us breakfast in bed.) She is always cute and charming, but morning, esp. early morning, is her best time, when she is bright and cheery but a wee bit subdued (for her, anyway), and is just adorable.
Today the house is a mess and I am too worn out and sniffly with cold germs to want to tackle it. Which isn’t a problem; I’ll just wait until tomorrow, when I’ve got more energy. Can’t quite get rid of that feeling, ever, that some invisible snob is looking at my house thinking “What a slob she is! Look at her house!” My inner bully at it again, I guess.
