the darkness before the dawn

We celebrated Halloween last night.
This is actually pretty unusual for me; I was raised thinking of Halloween as that evil, creepy, sinister day that we don't talk about. But, having changed into a very different adult, who loves creepy things, and also loves liturgy, I thought it was time. Plus, I'm trying to construct a year of Christian traditions for my kids - including rituals for Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter. Halloween needed to be in there somewhere as well.

We:
- made soul cakes (biscuits with currants)
- decorated our letterbox with orange balloons, so that trick-or-treaters would stop by
- distributed chocolate to 26 trick-or-treaters who saw our letterbox
- dressed up (not me, the kidlets) and gave out chocolate for cool dress-ups (me, to the kidlets)
- lit candles in honour of "the saints who have died and the saints still with us"
- lit candles in remembrance of this year's people who died (our cat, our nanny's dog, and my mum's best friend)
- read "Death Be Not Proud", by John Donne

Twas very enjoyable.