KS | LOUISIANALASS

Halloween is a big deal in America. Growing up, I loved the tradition of trick-or-treating in our neighborhood and walking through all the scary houses with my dad! I felt proud and accomplished when I would exit the haunted house still alive. It was almost a competition between my brother and I as to who could visit the most scary houses! I love holidays! I’m that chick that goes out to the pumpkin patch to pick the perfectly shaped pumpkin to carve and pose next the largest pumpkins while I search. I blame – or thank – my mom and her sisters for implanting these festive needs within me. Yes, they are needs. I must create/decorate. I wouldn’t relive my childhood any other way. And it’s important to me to give Ronan and my future little babes the same memories.

As October approached, I noticed Halloween would be a little different on the streets of Aberdeen. School was out. Two weeks the kids would be home, free of homework and tests. But there weren’t any kids looking to carve pumpkins. For their hands too tender and backs too sore to do any more. It would be a long two weeks of hard work back in 1970 Scotland, as the school break was easily known as the Tattie Holidays! 

Old traditions are always scary cool! Back in the day kids would help the potato harvest by picking tatties before the digger ploughed up the field. Now, the tattie holidays are spent on a beach as opposed to a potato field leading up to Halloween.

Pumpkin patches do not exist here, but transports do. And so did all of our pumpkin characters carved at Nanny and Granda’s. Most pumpkins were set out by the front door with candle light to welcome any trick-or-treaters. 

On the night of Hallows’ Eve, the little ones broke loose at 6 pm. After a few hours of trick-or-treating we all gathered to compare treats and play a couple of games! Our lovely host arranged games like bobbing for apples, catching doughnuts on a string, and wrapping each other like a mummy!  Good fun and precious memories this Halloween in Aberdeen.

  Mommy deer and Ronan-Dobby 👻