Halloween: A History Of My Love For It!

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Halloween is my favourite time of year…anyone that knows me in real life knows that this is the time of year that I look forward to the most!

I’ve loved Halloween for as long as I can remember…

I can recall my dad being sent a pack of Halloween decorations from the brewery to decorate the pub with – but he didn’t bother.

I managed to get my young little paws into all the orange and black goodies and remember my sister and I decorating our bedroom with crepe paper bats and rubber skeletons!  I must have been around 10 or 11 at the time.

(For the record, I grew up living in pubs/restaurants and I think this may be where my love for entertaining stems from as I remember fondly many events that my dad planned for the punters!)

I remember my mum throwing Halloween parties for my sisters and me (pre-brother!) and our school friends.

 (You’ll have to excuse the tiny photograph here from one of my scrapbooks.  I found the photo on my computer and must have taken it with a very old mobile or something!  My scrapbook is currently buried away in a cupboard somewhere so I can’t even provide a bigger shot.)

I Love Halloween

In the UK Halloween really wasn’t celebrated that much back then (this photo is from 1988!).

Certainly, no Trick or Treaters knocking on doors, and not many things for sale in the shops other than maybe a witch’s hat or some devil horns.

From the tiny pic, I can see most of us girls are either witches or devils, and one smart mum dressed their kid up as a ghost by throwing over a white sheet!

I think I was probably the only kid in my class at school to have a Halloween party back then!

I remember pumpkins being very expensive back then and having to search high and low at the market to buy one.

We would help my mum scrape out the flesh with a giant metal serving spoon and she would carve a scary face with triangle eyes and a zig-zag mouth…I think the knife she wielded was scarier though!

Doesn’t compare to the more refined carving tools that I bought as an adult from Pumpkin Masters and use to create my pumpkin carvings every year.

I remember her making the coolest witch using old tights and a black rubbish bag; stuffing the tights with newspaper and then assembling it all on an old broom and suspending it from the ceiling.

Pumpkin Carvings - The Purple Pumpkin Blog

As the years went by, Halloween grew in popularity in the UK and you could buy more things in the shops.

My collection of decorations has grown over the years, in fact, I have more Halloween decorations than I do Christmas ones!

I was very excited this year that I was in the USA (where Halloween is celebrated in ways that I am so jealous of!) and bought lots of lovely decorations for our home. They were up for most of October!

I passed on the Halloween celebrating legacy to my son and have had him helping me to scoop out pumpkins and get ready for our annual party since he was a toddler.  On the left scrapbook page, he must only be about 2 1/2 years old!  In the right, about 5.

I can’t remember not celebrating a Halloween in one way or another, whether it was a big party or just the three of us (my son, husband, and myself), and this year was no different (albeit a little late, but better late than never!).


The post is part of the Crafty October series on The Purple Pumpkin Blog. Check out Crafty October from 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, and 2012 for awesome Halloween ideas and inspiration; including recipes, printables, crafts, and more!

Crafty October on The Purple Pumpkin Blog

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