Halloween in Romania

[Pumpkin_Man]

I am sorry to hear that about Romania, but I guess not every country is like the U S. There are a lot of cultures who have either abandoned or never before celebrated Halloween. Even here in the U S, there are a lot of people who view Halloween as no big deal.

Too bad, because it's not only a fun day of celebration for me, but it's also the gate way to all the major family holidays, and though Halloween is my personal fav, I am already making plans for my Tree Trimming Party in December, and this year it's my turn to host Thanksgiving.

Mike

[Demonic Duck]

It was the stupid web filter. Now that I am home I can see all of Draculaura's great stuff. By the way I have the same ice tray people at my party love the skull and bone ice!

[scareviewzombies.com]

I hear celebrating Halloween in Australia is growing big time

[Pumpkin_Man]

I think it allways was a big holiday in Austrailia, only to them it's a spring holiday, rather then a Fall holiday.

Mike

[Draculaura]

Yay, Halloween's here!
This is me and bf leaving for the party on Saturday.


I did the make-up based on yt tutorials. The dress is the one I had made for my 18th birthday.

Tonight we're supposed to go party again, but hardly any of the people gathered since it's the middle of the week. Nevertheless, we plan on seeing Hotel Transylvania at the Cinema and watching home Nightmare before Christmas, putting up decos, carving a pumpkin (I am disappointed. As a child I had way bigger pumpkins than this one), and making Halloween-themed food. It should be a blast!

Oh, not to mention Halloween-themed nasty-doings.

[Murfreesboro]

Glad you enjoyed your trip to England, Draculaura, and that you and your BF found a way to celebrate Halloween!

You really need to plan a Halloween trip to the U.S. someday. Even though the holiday started in Ireland, I do believe we make more of it than anyone else on earth nowadays.

[Draculaura]

Thanks!
I'll attach here a video of my Halloween Deco's. I know it seems little compared to the American way of celebrating it, but I've gone to great lenghts to get even those tiny decos, so I'm proud of it.
https://vimeo.com/52744505
Also, these are our pumpkins:

This is the food I made for Halloween (left side,up: witches, right: bandaids, middle: eyes, low: ghosts, left side down: skulls and bones)

Well, it was a great Halloween.

I've been planning a trip to the US since forever and a day. Settled with bf that if our plans of starting a family turn out good, we'll be taking the kids trick or treating one Halloween, in the US. Can't wait for that.

[Murfreesboro]

What a great little Halloween buffet you had! Love your jack-o-lanterns, too!

By all means bring the family to America for Halloween one of these days! Be sure you research where the best places are to TOT in whatever city you visit, because the neighborhoods can vary greatly even within one town.

[Pumpkin_Man]

Good advice, Murf. ToT is a lot of fun, but you don't want to be doingit at the Robert Taylor homes or the Cabrini Green housing project.

Mike

[Demonic Duck]

I'm glad you got to have a good Halloween celebration Draculaura

[Badby]

While North Americans are busy celebrating an ancient Celtic tradition with hooker and pimp costumes, the story in this corner of Europe is a bit different. Most of the world, in fact, does Halloween a bit differently; that is to say, there is a deeper meaning.
In Romania, it's customary to pay homage at the graves of deceased relatives. While the dead are 'cared for' in this manner all year round, on this particular day everybody goes.

[Murfreesboro]

Badby, are you perhaps thinking of the Catholic tradition of All Souls' Day (November 2)? Since America was founded and dominated by Protestants for a very long time, Catholic traditions have never taken strong hold here--not in the sense of the general culture following them, I mean.

When I was a child, neither my mother nor I had a clue where Halloween came from. She had never TOTed as a child. That custom came into wide usage only after WWII, though it had begun in some parts of the country a little earlier. My understanding is that the earliest settlers of America, being Protestant, didn't observe Hallowmas, which they regarded as too Catholic and too pagan. Heck, many of them didn't even make much of Christmas, which was also regarded as too Catholic and too pagan by the fundamentalist sects.

Christmas was rehabilitated among English-speaking peoples in the late 18th & early 19th centuries, primarily through contact with German immigrants (and in England, German members of the royal family). In America, Santa Claus was introduced through Dutch settlers, who are kissing cousins with the Germans, so to speak. Halloween was re-introduced to English-speaking Americans by Irish immigrants in the 19th century.

I recently read a book about "vintage" Halloween celebrations in America, c. 1890-1930, I guess. One thing I learned was that, originally, it didn't have such a horrific aspect to it. It was gentler, more about ghost stories and games of fortune-telling. IDK. Maybe the movies turned it into a horror-fest.

[Pumpkin_Man]

We honor the dead during the Halloween season, too. In fact, the two days after Halloween are All Saints Day and All Souls Day. I attend Mass every All Saints Day, and if there's a special ceremony honoring the dead on All Souls Day, I attend that, too.

But I agree. The are a lot of different ways Halloween is observed all over the world.

Mike

[Murfreesboro]

The Episcopal Church has All Saints' & All Souls' Days, but we don't make much of them. You can go to church if you want to.

My husband's Lutheran Church doesn't recognize All Saints, that I am aware of, but they make a big deal out of October 31rst. To them it is Reformation Day--the day Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses on the door of the cathedral at Wittenberg.

[Pumpkin_Man]

All Saints Day is actualy a holy day of obligation in the Roman Catholic Church. All Catholics are required to attend Mass on that day.

Mike