Showing posts with label Halloween. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Halloween. Show all posts
31 October 2021
31 October 2020
31 October 2015
14 October 2015
FAMILY TRADITIONS - WRITE ABOUT THEM - READ ALOUD - INCLUDE THEM IN YOUR FAMILY HISTORY BOOK
(Check out my past posts about Halloween and All Souls Day using the search feature embedded on the sidebar of this Google Blogger!)
Did your family have any special holiday celebrations or traditions that were ethnic or their very own special invention?
I find that writing about this subject can really bring a kind of "warm and fuzzy" feeling to a family history writing project, along with all the genealogy data that you're compiling. You can even gather your family to have a little writing group and write as individuals together in the meeting on various events, read your writing to each other aloud, and include the writing in the MEMORIES part of your book.
For Halloween you might write about the first Halloween costume you ever wore. Could you breath through the mask? Did your mother sew it? Did you walk wearing it in a parade? Did your family celebrate this holiday in any special way? Is Halloween a holiday that is spiritual, funny, or spooky for you?
All Souls Day; Did you go to church? Did you pray for a relative that passed? How old were you when you understood what death was? What was the first funeral you remember attending like? How did it make you feel?
Thanksgiving: The best and worst Thanksgivings you've experienced. Favorite foods (be sure to credit the right cook!) The furthest you've ever traveled to attend a Thanksgiving Dinner.
Christmas: Your earliest memories of the holiday. How old were you? Pictures with Santa.
The year it didn't snow.
You get the idea.
As for me, I have some rich holiday memories such as:
That my aunt, in the days before you had to go through inspections at airports, actually took a cooked ham in a roaster pan on an airplane as her contribution to a meal in Florida. Reportedly at some point the ham beneath her seat moved and had passengers scrambling. (She proudly walked off the plane with the roaster pan before her.)
Being six years old and seeking my first body in a casket. It wasn't creepy exactly. The person appeared to be at peace - and waxy.
Wearing costumes that were made for me at dancing school for Halloween too - just with a simple mask. My neighbor who made home made candy apples - just a few for the closest neighbor kids - and gave out candy bars to the rest. Living in a suburb where one year several hundred kids came to the door.
The Christmas that my most treasured present was something small but yearned for that was in my stocking. The Christmas my cousin swore that she saw Santa and the reindeer from the window view from the top bunk bed. The Christmas a loved one died.
HAVE FUN!
C 2015-2025 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot
Did your family have any special holiday celebrations or traditions that were ethnic or their very own special invention?
I find that writing about this subject can really bring a kind of "warm and fuzzy" feeling to a family history writing project, along with all the genealogy data that you're compiling. You can even gather your family to have a little writing group and write as individuals together in the meeting on various events, read your writing to each other aloud, and include the writing in the MEMORIES part of your book.
For Halloween you might write about the first Halloween costume you ever wore. Could you breath through the mask? Did your mother sew it? Did you walk wearing it in a parade? Did your family celebrate this holiday in any special way? Is Halloween a holiday that is spiritual, funny, or spooky for you?
All Souls Day; Did you go to church? Did you pray for a relative that passed? How old were you when you understood what death was? What was the first funeral you remember attending like? How did it make you feel?
Thanksgiving: The best and worst Thanksgivings you've experienced. Favorite foods (be sure to credit the right cook!) The furthest you've ever traveled to attend a Thanksgiving Dinner.
Christmas: Your earliest memories of the holiday. How old were you? Pictures with Santa.
The year it didn't snow.
You get the idea.
As for me, I have some rich holiday memories such as:
That my aunt, in the days before you had to go through inspections at airports, actually took a cooked ham in a roaster pan on an airplane as her contribution to a meal in Florida. Reportedly at some point the ham beneath her seat moved and had passengers scrambling. (She proudly walked off the plane with the roaster pan before her.)
Being six years old and seeking my first body in a casket. It wasn't creepy exactly. The person appeared to be at peace - and waxy.
Wearing costumes that were made for me at dancing school for Halloween too - just with a simple mask. My neighbor who made home made candy apples - just a few for the closest neighbor kids - and gave out candy bars to the rest. Living in a suburb where one year several hundred kids came to the door.
The Christmas that my most treasured present was something small but yearned for that was in my stocking. The Christmas my cousin swore that she saw Santa and the reindeer from the window view from the top bunk bed. The Christmas a loved one died.
HAVE FUN!
C 2015-2025 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot
16 October 2013
ANCESTOR WORSHIP and HALLOWEEN OR SAMHAIN
Here is a video that retells a tale about Stingy Jack and the Devil by a Pagan Witch Collective!
ANCESTOR WORSHIP and HALLOWEEN
The Halloween that is celebrated in the United States is rooted in Celtic traditions and is associated with the cycle of life and death. The carved Jack O' Lantern pumpkin we are familiar with now had its roots in Celtic Ireland where a turnip was carved to hold a candle and held in hand. The turnip was probably a practical idea since a turnip was simply available. I'm not sure how or when pumpkins were used and then turned into laughing Jack-O-lanterns, but maybe it was as simple as that pumpkins grew in the Americas.
In the South-West, and that includes California and wherever Mexican immigrants have settled, a Halloween-like celebration is called The Day of the Dead. The Day of the Dead is a day - even a week - for family to gather at the graves of loved ones, to celebrate with food and drink (and offer them some). With humor many creations of sugary skeletons include skeletons participating in all aspects of life, singing, dancing, and simply performing their earthy professions, and are sold in special bakeries.
While Halloween has taken on horrific, even evil, connotations, that many of us do not involve ourselves in and it has even turned into an "anything goes" weekend, to those who are more interested in the spiritual tradition, Halloween is a time when the"veil" between this world and the world of the afterlife is especially thin and so communication with those who had passed on before us. Some people do rituals to contact these ancestors, others simply light a candle, do special prayers (All Souls Day of the Catholic Church), or mantras to release any soul that is in Purgatory to Heaven.
The belief of ancestor contact has roots in the Pagan or Country or Folk beliefs and is tied in with the agricultural cycle of the year, which is also coordinated with the seasonal weather cycle. Fall is the time of year in the Northern Hemisphere, the European countries, when the harvest takes place. The pumpkins and gourds are about to be harvested. Some plant and tree life is only resting and will grow again after dormancy in the spring. Soon the earth will cool, snow will come, and people will spend more time indoors. To our ancestors who lived generations ago in caves and other dwellings, staying close to the burning fire, busy themselves with crafts, and resting was essential, as was relying on many foods that had been stored.
From watching the cycle of the seasons, the cycle of life, a great many early cultures decided that reincarnation makes a lot of sense.
ANCESTOR WORSHIP and HALLOWEEN
The Halloween that is celebrated in the United States is rooted in Celtic traditions and is associated with the cycle of life and death. The carved Jack O' Lantern pumpkin we are familiar with now had its roots in Celtic Ireland where a turnip was carved to hold a candle and held in hand. The turnip was probably a practical idea since a turnip was simply available. I'm not sure how or when pumpkins were used and then turned into laughing Jack-O-lanterns, but maybe it was as simple as that pumpkins grew in the Americas.
In the South-West, and that includes California and wherever Mexican immigrants have settled, a Halloween-like celebration is called The Day of the Dead. The Day of the Dead is a day - even a week - for family to gather at the graves of loved ones, to celebrate with food and drink (and offer them some). With humor many creations of sugary skeletons include skeletons participating in all aspects of life, singing, dancing, and simply performing their earthy professions, and are sold in special bakeries.
While Halloween has taken on horrific, even evil, connotations, that many of us do not involve ourselves in and it has even turned into an "anything goes" weekend, to those who are more interested in the spiritual tradition, Halloween is a time when the"veil" between this world and the world of the afterlife is especially thin and so communication with those who had passed on before us. Some people do rituals to contact these ancestors, others simply light a candle, do special prayers (All Souls Day of the Catholic Church), or mantras to release any soul that is in Purgatory to Heaven.
The belief of ancestor contact has roots in the Pagan or Country or Folk beliefs and is tied in with the agricultural cycle of the year, which is also coordinated with the seasonal weather cycle. Fall is the time of year in the Northern Hemisphere, the European countries, when the harvest takes place. The pumpkins and gourds are about to be harvested. Some plant and tree life is only resting and will grow again after dormancy in the spring. Soon the earth will cool, snow will come, and people will spend more time indoors. To our ancestors who lived generations ago in caves and other dwellings, staying close to the burning fire, busy themselves with crafts, and resting was essential, as was relying on many foods that had been stored.
From watching the cycle of the seasons, the cycle of life, a great many early cultures decided that reincarnation makes a lot of sense.
30 October 2011
THE THIN VEIL BETWEEN THE WORLDS - HALLOWEEN or HALLOMAS
Thin veil? That is the term I've heard used so many times in my life at this season of ancestor worship - and contact - called Halloween or Hallomas by the Pagans. (I'm linking to a non-commercial site by a Pagan that has far more explaination.) As I understand it, this is the best time of the year for psychic contact with those who have left us behind in this earthly existance.
From the site linked:
"This festival marks the Celtic New Year and the most important festival of the Year. Its usual date is 31 October. It marks the transition from the Western Quarter of the Wheel to the Northern Quarter. The time of the Ritual is dusk, or 9pm.
To the Celts, everything had its beginning in darkness. Darkness and death held the promise of new Life, like the dark of night holds the promise of a new day coming. The Celtic day started at dusk, and their New Year at the dusk of the Year. At the festival on the last evening of October, they honoured their ancestors and their beloved dead. In Catholic countries people still decorate the graves with flowers on this day, like a promise of life at the dark time of the year."
From the site linked:
"This festival marks the Celtic New Year and the most important festival of the Year. Its usual date is 31 October. It marks the transition from the Western Quarter of the Wheel to the Northern Quarter. The time of the Ritual is dusk, or 9pm.
To the Celts, everything had its beginning in darkness. Darkness and death held the promise of new Life, like the dark of night holds the promise of a new day coming. The Celtic day started at dusk, and their New Year at the dusk of the Year. At the festival on the last evening of October, they honoured their ancestors and their beloved dead. In Catholic countries people still decorate the graves with flowers on this day, like a promise of life at the dark time of the year."
19 October 2011
MERRY HALLOWEEN
I've read that Jack O Lanterns began in the Celtic Countries where candles were put into TURNIPS! Pumpkins are of the New World (the America's).Personally I greatly dislike the gore and horror now attributed to Halloween and this time of year. I think these things are in the spirit of evil, rather than a wholesome spirituality.
You can celebrate Halloween and the Day of the Dead and All Souls at this time of the year by scrapbooking family photos, working more on your genealogy, and honoring your ancestors who are alive as well as those who wait on the other side.
30 October 2009
ALL SOULS... HALLOWEEN... THE ANCESTORS
This blog is called ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY because I think that genealogy IS a form of ancestor worship... And Halloween is the time when they say that the "veil between the worlds" is the thinnest. Be it the Catholic celebration of All Souls in early November, or the Mexican tradition of THE DAY OF THE DEAD, remembering those who have passed on is tradition in many cultures...
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