We had a very happy Samhain this year! We had the best, clear and cool weather to celebrate! We’re usually worried about cancelling our bonfire thanks to rain but not this year!
A bit last minute but we decided to have a small party since I realised that others are actually interested in celebrating this time of year the way we do- without the commercial candy, junk and commercialism. Next year, we may plan a larger party ahead of time to include more people.
We had a potluck supper where I made crockpot Chicken Enchiladas with a free range, organic chicken (new to our grocery store!), Refried Beans, Marshmallows for the bonfire and my favourite for this time of year, Honeyed Seed Cake.
Before supper we had a lengthy treasure hunt where Lily read the clues that took the kids around to different patches in the garden, up the tree fort and all around inside our house. The kids cooperated as they collected treasure like glow sticks and funny white marble type items. The kids didn’t realise until the last clue that those white marbles were actually mentos and that they had collected the makings for putting together their own geyser with mentos, diet pop and a device that drops them inside the pop bottle all at once. It was a lot of fun but the kids weren’t sure what to expect so I pulled the pin to make the geyser. We can’t wait to do that again!
Erin was kind enough to share her video of this moment.
Both Lily and Leif had designed and created their own costumes this year. Lily was a creepy and beautiful witch with a long train on her hand sewn dress. Leif was a ghost with a bed sheet (Cam’s white tshirt later on) and a scary, white ghost mask.
The pumpkins were also designed and created by the kids with only a little help from Cam.
Lily is almost an expert in seasoning and toasting pumpkin seeds thanks to all the organic sugar pumpkins we’ve been buying to make Pumpkin Pie with Maple Whipped Cream this season. Yum! Lily uses garlic, Worcestershire sauce, garlic chilli paste, a little salt and a little oil.
Along with celebrating the end of the harvesting season, we also took this week to reflect on the way our passed away loved ones have touched out lives. We usually commemorate Cam’s father and step father at this time but we sadly added my Nana to this list since she passed away earlier this year. I had a lot of wonderful stories to share about her with my kids. We laughed and cried and talked about how these loved people helped make us who we are.
(ps. Happy Voting USA Hopefully the sensible choice, Obama wins the day.)
happy samhain friend! i wish, wish, wish we could do this together one year. i am so grateful for sharing that day this year with another local family, who gets it. it was fun! oh, i burst out laughing when i saw the mentos and pop guyser. we have got to try that, and i won’t tell the boys what it does. can you email me and tell me how you did it? your fire was lovely, ours got rained out, it looked like it was going to be dry and then it just dumped rain. i did miss the fire. i am glad to hear that you had time to think of your nana too ;) xoxo
We would love to celebrate Samhain with you guys! xx
Can you believe that geyser?! We didn’t know it would be quite like that either! This is the geyser tube we used was: http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/product/geyser-tube
oooo, thank you!! i’ll check it out in the am … xoxo
i just watched this again with the family. we all have tears streaming down our face from laughing so hard. okay maybe just me and matthew. :)
i just noticed it is on the website you link too, so off to watch it. it looked sooooo fun. i love you at the ebnd … “it smells like sugar.”
That has us laughing again here too! Would be fun to do with you guys sometime. xx