Halloween

Halloween is the modern name of the ancient Irish and Scottish holiday of Samhain (pronounced SOW-win), a Celtic-Gaelic word meaning “summers-end”. It begins at dusk on October 31, and marks the doorway to the dark half of the Celtic year, the opening of a new cycle.

In the 7th-century CE the Pope established All Saints’ Day, originally on May 13, and in the following century it was moved to November 1. The evening before All Saints’ Day became a holy, or hallowed, eve and thus Samhain became Halloween.

The Reformation put an end to the religious holiday among Protestants, although in Britain Halloween continued to be celebrated as a secular holiday. The celebration of Halloween was mostly forbidden among the early American colonists, until the 1800s.

Agenda:

1. Make paper bats

2. Make a costume

3. Trick or Treats

1. Make paper bats:

This year my older grandson and I made some easy origami bats that bob and flap.

Supplies: Black paper, gel pen, string, tape or stapler

1. Cut a large triangle from black paper.

2. Fold down the top edge and crease in the middle.

3. Fold each wing down to the tail point...

then accordion fold back out, to form wings.

4. Make a little cut to form ears, then add eyes with a gel pen.

5. Tape or staple on a piece of string at the balance point.

2. Make a costume:

2023

Originally, folks probably dressed in costumes and masks at Samhain to scare off any spirits that were bad. Now we do it because it's fun! 

3. Trick or Treats:
It's a right of passage ceremony, really - you are deemed old enough to walk up to the doors of strangers and ask for candy. This year we have one veteran 4-year-old trick-or-treater, and a younger brother who is a fast study. At 1-1/2 he can already say all the right words

Today we will practice the etiquette and protocols: How to safely climb the steps, knock on the door, say "Trick or Treat", and pick out ONE candy, then say "Thank-you".