Merry Samhain and Happy Halloween a second time today! In case you missed it, I posted briefly this afternoon to share my Halloween playlist with you.

We’re past the witching hour. The last of the trick-or-treaters have long gone. This was the first year families brought their kids to this street! As a just-in-case, I bought a small bag of candy in the 11th hour this afternoon and filled up a caldron/bowl thing from a previous Halloween and set it outside on the wooden beams next to Michael Myers. I wrote HELP YERSELVES on a piece of cardboard and set that in there, too. The families still rang the doorbell, though, and I opened the door so the kids could scream TRICK OR TREAT!!!!! before I directed them to the caldron of candy.

Not going to lie, guys. Costumed children joyfully trick-or-treating brought a little tear to my eye as our country struggles with the pandemic under what seems to be the penumbra of a civil war. The children’s exuberance drew an emotional response from me. It’s like for one night before potential chaos ensues, they got to skip down the street in costumes, laughing and shrieking and collecting candy as their parents stood by having just as good a time.

It just made everything seem so normal.

But why was everyone shrieking when they arrived, you might be wondering? Because of Michael Myers. Ol’ Michael was a huge hit out there. The reactions were priceless! I could hear them as I sat here in my office, shrieks and laughter and loud exclamations in front of the house, and I knew that trick-or-treaters were afoot.

Tonight was beautiful. As I’d rhapsodized in a previous post, our Halloween moon is a full, blue moon in Taurus, a special astronomical and astrological circumstance. On a personal level, the full moon in Taurus resonates especially deeply, I think, because Taurus is my rising sign.

Of course I went outside and tried to take pics of the moon with my cell phone! There was a cloud cover that obscured it, but my phone is a Google Pixel, so I got some pics that I like nonetheless. This pic is raw and untouched, as usual:

 

 

I love the history of this holiday, too. It started in ancient times as Samhain, the Celts’ seasonal celebration, and then the Romans came along and conquered Britain and imposed their Autumn Festival revelries onto Samhain as they wanted to do away with the native Celts. (A familiar story, this business of conquerors on a mission to destroy the natives.) In turn, the Pope eventually crashed the party and insisted on giving the day a religious makeover by dubbing it “All Saints Day,” because he wanted to convert the pagan Romans to Christianity. (Another familiar story, this business of The Church on a mission to Christianize the pagans by taking their holidays and renaming them to fit with Christianity.) But this, as you probably know, is how we got this holiday. “Hallow” is another word for “saint,” so All Hallows Day, November 1st, is just All Saints Day by another name. The night before All Hallows Day is All Hallows Eve, which was popularly shortened to “Halloween.” Thank you, 7th-century Pope, for giving us this holiday!

In their celebration of Samhain, the ancient Celts respected that the end of summer brought in a transitional time of the year during which the veil between worlds was the thinnest. Spirits of the dead could slip back into the world during this time.

This year, I’ve really been feeling the ancient holiday of Samhain. My nods to it were simple, following the Celts’ cautionary practices of dressing up in scary costume, setting out a Jack-O-Lantern, and offering up treats. The Celts dressed up to be scary on Samhain in order to ward off the darkly mischievous spirits. With respect to this tradition, I dressed up to be scary on Friday and went in to work as a psycho surgeon:

 

 

I then went home and took some selfies. We had half the day off in observance of Halloween… another holiday first for me!

 

 

 

Now for the moment I’ve been dreading: our final horror short films of Halloween 2020. I’ll start with this little gem: Happy Halloween, Gore score: 1. Run-time: 3:49.

 

 

This next one isn’t what you’d think it’d be; I’m still scratching my head over its title. Here’s Wet Willy, Gore score: 3. Run-time: 4:28.

 

 

And for tonight’s feature presentation, I bring you Dinah, Gore score: 1. Run-time: 11:05.

 

 

The End, until 2021! I’m about to get busy watching all the short horror I can in the next 365 days so I can stash away my favorites to share with you in next year’s Short Horror October.

Happy November, my friends. Until next week!