Halloween in short is actually All Hallow's Eve. Or in Old Irish, we can say Summer's End and thus they call it the Celtic New Year. Something like celebration of the End of the Lighter Half and Beginning of the Darker Half.
Thus, it was weird but still understandable when people celebrate it earlier. Weird in the sense, that imagine someone celebrates Christmas or New Year earlier than it is... Like yesterday, I told a friend what it meant by the true celebration of Halloween. She was laughing at the thought of someone celebrating All Hallow's Eve on the eve of the eve. It's like celebrating New Year's Eve on the Eve of NYE itself (i.e. Dec 30th) or Eve of Xmas Eve (i.e. 23th Dec) and similar to CNY just because we're busy. Or it's a weekend or holiday. Well, Asian culture tells that we're all just adaptive but due to busy schedule and workdays, we just celebrate it whenever convenient and as long as it's fun, everyday can be Halloween or whatever party they feel like doing. The only original celebration is Valentine's Day or the origin of Saint Valentine himself. This is one celebration that has NO EVEs and celebrated exactly on Feb 14th. Unless someone decides to be cheapskate and buy roses in advance and celebrate it to avoid the hefty paying of loads and busy schedules or blaming that it falls on a week night.
Nonetheless, this is how Halloween is:
Halloween (or Hallowe'en) is an annual holiday observed on October 31, primarily in the United States, Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. It has roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Christian holiday All Saints' Day, but is today largely a secular celebration.
Common Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, wearing costumes and attending costume parties, carving jack-o'-lanterns, ghost tours, bonfires, apple bobbing, visiting haunted attractions, committing pranks, telling ghost stories or other frightening tales, and watching horror films.
The word Halloween is first attested in the 16th century and represents a Scottish variant of the fuller All-Hallows-Even ("evening"), that is, the night before All Hallows Day. Up through the early 20th century, the spelling "Hallowe'en" was frequently used, eliding the "v" and shortening the word. Although the phrase All Hallows is found in Old English (ealra hālgena mæssedæg, mass-day of all saints), All-Hallows-Even is itself not attested until 1556.
Historian Nicholas Rogers, exploring the origins of Halloween, notes that while "some folklorists have detected its origins in the Roman feast of Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds, or in the festival of the dead called Parentalia, it is more typically linked to the Celtic festival of Samhain, whose original spelling was Samuin (pronounced sow-an or sow-in)". The name is derived from Old Irish and means roughly "summer's end". A similar festival was held by the ancient Britons and is known as Calan Gaeaf (pronounced Kálan Gái av).
The festival of Samhain celebrates the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darker half", and is sometimes regarded as the "Celtic New Year".
The ancient Celts believed that the border between this world and the Otherworld became thin on Samhain, allowing spirits (both harmless and harmful) to pass through. The family's ancestors were honoured and invited home while harmful spirits were warded off. It is believed that the need to ward off harmful spirits led to the wearing of costumes and masks. Their purpose was to disguise oneself as a harmful spirit and thus avoid harm. In Scotland the spirits were impersonated by young men dressed in white with masked, veiled or blackened faces. Samhain was also a time to take stock of food supplies and slaughter livestock for winter stores. Bonfires played a large part in the festivities. All other fires were doused and each home lit their hearth from the bonfire. The bones of slaughtered livestock were cast into its flames. Sometimes two bonfires would be built side-by-side, and people and their livestock would walk between them as a cleansing ritual.
Another common practice was divination, which often involved the use of food and drink.
The name 'Halloween' and many of its present-day traditions derive from the Old English era.
So, in the words invented by me long ago when I had to play a transformed witch in the school play... here goes:
"Tweek or Tweet (trick or treat), smell me feet... gimme something good to eat! Waaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha..." (oops... i drop my ugly long nose.. lolz) Happy Trick or Treating to ya all and Happy Halloween.
Oh, in other turn of events, before I forrget. I've to congratulate a good brother of mine in his excellent progress in acquiring his "target". I hope the missile that he has launched (he said he's deployed the ICBMs compared to my suggestion of using Carpet Bombs or Scud Storms) will detonate the target seeing that target has shown interest to be willing to be blown-away. LOLz. Good luck o'chum! We have your back. I'm so happy that I incidentally path the way to this glorious good news. Awaiting your mission accomplish report back in the Air Base.
Another turn of events is the recent decision of another fellow buddy that decided to drop "Milk Chocolates" (hahahhaa, she's gonna kill me when she reads this.. :P~) and go for "Dark Chocolates"... We went across a couple of it and she said she didn't want those that were too bitter (90% cocoa) and settled for those which are like "70% cocoa". Interesting huh? hahaha. I told her, in that case, I'm risking my allergy for "Red Beans" and hope my choice would miraculously turn into the "Milk Chocolate" instead too.
Nothing else much happened last night besides the gang coming forth for a round (well, there's about 2-3 rounds I think) of drinks while the BWF (Badminton) was Live. Poor Ray ended up watching Blackburn kicking Chelsea's Ass and decided to go home and watch the Man Utd match instead. I got to enjoy it damn well because my crew made the unthinkable without asking or talking to me about it first. They installed all our LED boards from the stadium at my playground garden and decor the entire place for Halloween and brought our concert series speakers and equipment just to watch that football match. CRAZY them! My security guards were so nice to let them do such a party and they went to the Residents' Association directly.. Smart team I have. The Association actually let them do it cos it's free food, free booze, free football and free party etc (basically benefit everyone! everything to gain and nothing to lose!) and they OK-ed it without me. Hahahaha... well, my house is a total mess now with them partying all night long and it was like the FIFA World Cup Finals (The Spain match all over again.) Watching it in HD was like at the Stadium itself and looking at the Red Devils were larger than life! I think the entire Mines area could benefit from it. I see some people watching it from their balcony of the condo which is like how many KM/Miles away from us. Even the Mines Resort hotel guests also enjoyed it from their balcony. Hahaha... Ok, enough with the mess.
While picking up J.Lee yesterday, I dropped by next door to pass some stuff to a special someone. She was surprised to see me. Probably she thought I was gonna gate-crash her Halloween Party and knowing her, she sure decorate and do up a great party. Well, I bought her a Chocolate (coincidentally, it's Milk Chocolate and has nothing to do with the conversation I had above. Just a disclaimer in case anyone is assuming or confused). And attached to the Chocolate (it's from Cadbury, the factory itself in Victoria, Australia. A limited edition one cause you can only find it there. It's much more nicer, more unique and more sentimental). I remembered I made a very big mistake and that boo-boo costed me. So, this time, I took the initiative and went all the way there to bring the unmelted and proper one back to let her savor the best as it should had been. I also know that when she visits a new place, she would collect the fridge magnets from that destination as a symbolic souvenir denoting her presence. Therefore, instead of fridge magnets, I got a small Koala (with a simple but cute t-shirt on it) to 'grab' onto the Chocolate. It denotes bringing a piece of the place back to her instead.
Oh, it's time to go for my rejuvenation session and dim sum now. Happy Jack-O-lantern(ing) guys... *evil laugh*
