The holidays are upon us!
When I was little Halloween was a day of abstinence - as was Christmas Eve.
I remember my dad fixing tuna hot-dish with potato chips on top, and we'd have to eat supper before going out. I loved that - tuna hot-dish I mean. My dad fixed it because my mom worked. I couldn't eat fast enough however, to get into my costume and go out trick or treating. That was when I was little.
This Halloween: Scare the hell out of them.
Halloween is fun for kids. Especially little kids.
People worry about the old fashioned tradition of scary costumes and decorations. Many adults seem to associate Halloween with the occult today. Additional themes are associated with sexy, adult entertainment. I blame the parents - and Disney.
Some families have their kids dress up as saints instead. I've always liked that idea. There are really scary saints too.
St. Denis was beheaded and is said to have picked up his head and walked back to his cathedral.
St. Antony of Egypt, covered with attacking demons that look like the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz would be a cool costume - start making it today for next year.
Virgin martyrs like St. Lucy - eye balls gouged out and on a plate - very cool. Agatha is good too - severed breasts on a platter - you get your sexy along with the macabre. It's a win-win, and a lesson in abstinence.
Thomas Moore or some of the English martyrs were beheaded, some drawn and quartered - think how bloody a costume that might be. Of course the devils are afraid of the martyrs - so go ahead and scare them. Scary is fun.
What Halloween lacks today is creativity. And maybe fasting before the feast of All Saints. The candy is better the next morning. It can almost be like Christmas. Trudging door to door can be like a pilgrimage, or a sort of Posada - in memorial of the dead. Or not.
Christians shouldn't be afraid of stuff - except sin.
Good post Terry, I LOVE Halloween!
ReplyDeleteI had no idea Halloween was a day of fasting...that was pre-Vatican II right? My Mom is Queen Catholic so I am glad she didn't make us do that. Our Halloween dinner was always Chili or Sloppy Joes (though my Mom's chili is terrible..its more like soup) which I still make for the day..(of course my Chili is much better then my Mom's.)
If your going to do saints then scary saints are the way to go, I like the beheaded saints, or maybe saints with really bad stigmata..(one of those blood packets in the sleave would be a nice way to do it.)I saw on some website Catholic.Org or something where they had Halloween party suggestions and they had kids dressed up as saints...(not scary) and do a processional praying. The did suggest visiting a graveyard (are any open on Halloween..) or making tombstones but of course they have to be of departed loved ones, or clergy which isnt as scary as it is sad(way to bring my sugar high down mom!) They do say that someone could dress as a lost soul which is a good costume idea and that "for a touch of scare," you can create a hell-room which sounds like fun but is supposed to remind them of the dangers of hell...apparently these people never had kids as it would just be the most popular room of the house and not too many are going to think of their souls..(unless they are kind of neurotic already.) Anyway other then the hell room it seems a sure fire way to get your kid beat up when they go to school the next day to tell about their Halloween.
Halloween is supposed to be fun and as you said, being scared if fun!!
Terry, you had to fast on Christmas Eve too??? Wow..way to ruin the two best nights of the year and I am going to have to discuss this with my Mom to tease her about being a lapsed Catholic in our youth!
Mack, when I was younger, I had a friend who rarely cooked, and when she did, she made bad chili. And made it for parties! She browned the meat but I don't think she seasoned it and just put her beans in the pot and cooked it long enough to warm it up but neither drained her cans of stuff nor cooked it long enough to reduce the liquid.
DeleteI guess neither of them won any chili cook offs then! Wow beans not drained and just warmed up.
DeleteForgot to mention...isn't the fun of Halloween supposed to be that life (eternal) triumphs over death? So lets have fun and make fun of the dark.
ReplyDeleteTuna Casserole mmm, I havent thought of that in years. That would be a good Halloween dinner..I have to look a recipe for that.
Halloween..."All Hallows Eve" so fasting makes sense although we did not do that while I was growing up. I went trick o' treating until I was about 17 years old. I know that was too old but I had fun...more fun when I was younger. ^^
ReplyDeleteFasting on Christmas Eve? In a Mexican household...it boggles the mind especially with homemade tamales and Champurrado and other goodies laying around the table. I hope to watch Midnight Mass from Rome on that wonderful night...and that's only if I don't work.
Happy Halloween everyone! All in good fun!
I like to make dinner in a pumpkin. Makes a great soup tureen or stew pot. I was the 4th of ten and as a teenager I often made the costumes for the three youngest and took them around the neighborhood. That way I wasn't really trick or treating but I usually got some candy. Those were fun days. Now I go around with my grandkids and eat THEIR candy. LOL!
ReplyDeleteMary Ann, that's a lot of work isn't it? You have to scrape the pumpkin out I presume? I am lazy so I stick to bad pumpkin shaped tureens to do it.
DeleteSo much fun back in the day when we were kids and could wander the neighborhood not worrying about anything. Though as a kid the rumors started going around about "hippies," putting razors in candy. I have no ideal where we were getting the idea that peacenik stoned hippies would do such a thing but it was late 60s early 70s and hippies got the blame for everything.
That's wonderfully-creative of you, Terry in posting how scary some costumes of the martyr-saints would be. I loved trick-or-treating when little, too, (last time I was 13yrs.old,I must admit!!) and there weren't so many dangers back then of children receiving truly nasty-treats or being hurt in some other way, you know? And thanks for the tuna-fish w/potato-chips casserole recipe! I'll see about a recipe and cooking that one day very soon, hopefully. God bless!
ReplyDeleteThankfully the bowls and bags of candy don't appear in quantity at work until the day after Halloween. If I don't eat any candy or cookies until Nov 1st, will that count as abstinence?
ReplyDeleteMom would put potato chips on salmon loaf, and Kraft American Cheese on the tuna casserole. I don't remember if we had either on Halloween, but I do remember all of my costumes.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasting_and_abstinence_in_the_Roman_Catholic_Church
ReplyDeleteSoupy chili, with undrained beans, tuna casserole, salmon loaf with pototo chips?!!! Will the horrors never end?!!!
ReplyDelete