Samhain has such rich visual and sensual themes that some people don’t want to put the skeletons back in their closet when it’s over! If you prefer gothic motifs for your home, this is certainly the season to shop. If you’re someone who prefers to change decor to reflect the seasons, take advantage of Halloween’s commercial popularity, whether you go ready-made or handmade. You can grab the last of the late harvest foods for your ancestral meal and stock up on black candles and no one will think twice about any cackling as you do it! While Halloween may have a reputation for all the sugar highs, there are plenty of traditional dishes that allow you to sidestep the excess sweetness and embrace the season.
Recipes
The last of the harvest comes in just before Samhain. The dishes of Samhain are often an effort to use up the food that did not get preserved and to make the most of fresh food while you can. Kale, apples, nuts, and grains form the flavor of rich Halloween traditions.
Kale Chips
Kale, in recent years, has become a health food darling. It is also integral to Samhain—it still grows late into the fall—should you sneak into someone’s yard and steal a kale stalk to see what kind of person you might marry, you might as well eat it when done!
Just because kale is healthy does not mean you can’t enjoy it. This recipe poses it as a replacement for the potato chip. It may take a few tries as you figure out at what temperature your oven plays best with the plant, but once you master that, you can revel in the happy crunch of a well-toasted leaf.
Ingredients:
1 bunch of kale
2 tablespoons olive or sunflower oil
Sea salt, to season to taste
Preheat your oven to 275°F. Thoroughly wash the kale, then remove the center stem (also called the rib), and cut leaves into 1 inch or larger pieces. You may wish to blot any excess water. Toss in a bowl with the oil until the kale has an even coating. Sprinkle with sea salt. Bake for 10 minutes or until crisp, then flip over and bake the other side.
Serve hot or cold. Another option is to flavor the chips with a favorite spice mix before baking.
Baked Apples
Apples are everywhere at Samhain, used in games such as bobbing and biting, for apple peel divinations, and for pulling apart in tests of strength.
Ingredients:
Apples, cored—one for each person you are serving
1 tablespoon maple syrup (per apple)
1 tablespoon raisins (per apple)
1 teaspoon allspice, cinnamon, or ground cloves (per apple)
Set the cored apples in a ramekin or glass dish on a microwave safe plate. In a bowl, mix the raisins, maple syrup, and spices until evenly distributed. Fill the apple. Microwave on high for 2 minutes per apple.
If using an oven: Preheat oven to 375°F. Bake filled apples in a glass dish or in individual cups for 10 to 13 minutes.
Apple Curry Soup
This may look vaguely like applesauce, but it’s much more complex.
Ingredients:
5–6 large apples, cored and sliced into ¼ inch pieces
2 cups water
2 tablespoons sweet curry
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon chili powder
Combine all the ingredients in a crockpot and cook on low overnight. In small batches, pour ingredients into a food processor and puree. Pour the puree back into the pot and reheat for an hour. Serve warm.
Pumpkin Seeds
Pumpkins are ubiquitous at Samhain season, so much so that it’s easy to be overwhelmed. While pumpkin pie is usually the first and favorite go-to, you can try pumpkin in just about any recipe that calls for squash, or use it in your favorite baking recipe as a substitute for butter and sometimes as a substitute for flour. (This will take some trial and error.)
The rule for pumpkin seeds is this: the bigger the pumpkin, the bigger the seeds. That also comes with the price of pulp. There is, however, a way to remove that pulp without losing your mind.
When you clean out the pumpkin pulp, place the seeds and pulp in a large bowl. Rinse under running water, picking out the large pieces of pulp as you go. Repeat this process a few times, removing the pulp as able. Once you have gotten as much as you can from this method, fill the bowl with as much water as it can contain. The seeds will float to the top, while the pulp sinks. You can then skim out and dry the seeds off with a bit of paper towel.
Ingredients
1–2 cups of pumpkin seeds
1–2 teaspoons of olive or sunflower oil
Salt to taste
Preheat oven to 300°F. In a bowl, toss the seeds with oil and then salt to taste. Spread seeds evenly on a baking sheet. Bake for about 45 minutes, checking and stirring every 15 minutes to ensure even browning.
Allow to cool. Eat as a snack or use as a garnish in salads, soups, and sandwiches.
Pumpkin Puree
While many cooks prefer to get their pumpkin puree from a can, it often comes preseasoned in ways that do not cooperate with dishes besides desserts. To make this, you will need to cook the pumpkin shell. You will need at least one small pumpkin to make the puree.
Ingredients
1–2 small pumpkins
Preheat oven to 350°F. Slice the top off a small pumpkin. Then scoop out the innards like you would any squash. Rinse off the flesh pieces, cutting them into 5- or 6-inch slices, and spread them out on a baking sheet. Bake for 45 minutes; check about halfway through to make sure they brown instead of burn. Remove and cool until you can touch them comfortably. At this point, you can easily peel off the pumpkin skin with your hands, using a knife to scrape off any small, stubborn bits.
Place the remaining shell in a blender or a food processor a few pieces at a time and puree. Add a little water as you do this to ensure a smooth blend. You may wish to work over the puree with a potato ricer after it goes through the food processor to smooth out any remaining chunks. You can freeze this until you need it.
Pumpkin Bisque
Ingredients:
1 whole onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 ½ tablespoons butter
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 ¼ cup water
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon chili powder
A few strands of saffron (optional)
1 cup whole milk unsweetened yogurt
In a saucepan, sauté the onions and garlic in butter until they brown. Add the pumpkin puree, water, and spices and boil. Reduce heat immediately and simmer for five minutes, gradually adding the yogurt. Serve warm.
Pan de Muerto (Bread of the Dead)
Bread is the ultimate ancestral food: it is the marker of human agricultural history. It represents the point at which humans began to inhabit one area of land for a long time, and the time at which they changed their diets from hunter-gatherer to farmed fare. In Samhain, breads and cakes bore many traditions ranging from fortune telling to faery pacts. Now, it’s another tasty treat, whether we keep it to ourselves or share.
This bread is often served as part of Dia de Los Muertos celebrations as an offering of food to the departed ancestors that their families may also enjoy. What makes it tricky is that the baker rolls it into something resembling a skeleton shape before baking. You may want to practice on clay or playdough a few times before you make this!
Ingredients:
½ cup milk
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut to ½ inch pieces
¼ teaspoon orange juice
1 tablespoon orange blossom water
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 ⁄4 teaspoons active dry yeast
3½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
½ cup granulated sugar (coconut sugar also works here)
1 teaspoon salt
Sunflower oil as needed
Butter, honey, powdered sugar (optional)
Preheat oven to 350°F. In a saucepan, melt together the milk, butter, and orange juice.
Take off of heat and cool until it feels safe to touch. Add the orange blossom water and whisk in the eggs. Add yeast to this mixture. Let the mixture stand until it bubbles slightly, usually in three or four minutes.
On a clean, flat work surface, mix together the flour, sugar, and salt. Make a small mound out of the mix, and then with your finger create a well in the center of it. Add a little bit of the milk and yeast mixture, working the flour, and pausing to add a little bit more in at a time until the liquid and solids are incorporated. Knead until the dough is only a little bit sticky. Add flour as necessary.
Put the dough in a large oiled bowl and cover with a clean dishtowel. Leave in a warm spot until the dough doubles in size. This usually takes about an hour.
Making the Skeleton Parts:
Set aside a portion of the dough—the size of two dinner rolls is good. Divide the remaining dough onto two greased or lined baking sheets and flatten. Use the reserved dough to shape your skeletal impressions. There is no specific rule for how to shape the skeleton—you might shape all the dough into a single skull and then use your fingers to shape a face.
You could also separate the dough into two larger balls and one smaller ball. On one of the two larger balls, roll out a pillar, and then shape the ends like a cartoon bone. Repeat this on the other large piece of dough, and then lay that bone over the top of the other bone in the form of a cross. Take the smaller piece of dough and roll it into a ball. Use your thumbs to push two eye impressions into one area, and with a toothpick shape out the nose holes and teeth. If you check sites such as allrecipes.com for pan de muertos, you will see that cooks generally go for the impression of a skeleton rather than a precise creation.
Once you have shaped the dough as you wish, place the bread on the center rack of the oven, cooking for 30–40 minutes or until golden brown.
You may wish to garnish the bread after with a brush of melted butter and honey or powdered sugar.
Sugar Skulls
Unlike pan de muertos, sugar skulls are intended only as food for the dead. After making them, place them on the gravesites of departed loved ones or leave them outside for the elements to consume. (If you live in an area with fire ants or bees, choose a place far from any residence to leave them.) Also, since sugar is much more difficult to shape than bread, invest in a silicon mold for this. Try to get the more realistic/toothy type mold—the cartoonish skull and crossbones shapes tend to crumble on the way out! Also, choose a low humidity day to make these, otherwise the ingredients may crumble and lose their shape.
This recipe is intended for a small batch mold, rather than for larger skull molds that are also available.
Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon meringue powder or cream of tartar
1 teaspoon of water (or more, may need to add as you go)
Colored icings, beads, feathers, etc. for decorating
In a large bowl, mix the sugar and the meringue powder. Sprinkle in a teaspoon of water until you can press your thumb into the mixture and the print remains. Fill the mold with this mixture, pressing the back and ensuring it’s as flat as possible. Make sure to leave a sliver of space at the back of the mold—this makes it easier to remove the skull intact. You may want to use a butter knife to ensure that the back of each mold remains flat. Flip the mold over onto a flat plate. If using a silicon mold, you can lightly press the face of the mold for a release. With a plastic mold, you may need to tap with the flat side of the butter knife. Allow the skulls to dry for 24 hours. After they have dried completely, use the icing and other tools to decorate as you wish. If attaching nonedible elements, use the icing as glue. Allow to dry another 24 hours, and then they are ready as offerings!
A sugar skull
Soul Cakes
In the British Isles, the poor often went to prosperous houses on Samhain night seeking aid in the form of food, money, and prayers, and they offered prayers in return. Often the people visited provided soul cakes, as a sort of payment for the prayers and blessings that they offered to their dead. This dry cookie makes a nice addition to any dumb supper you wish to host.
Ingredients:
3 eggs
2 cups flour (almond and oatmeal flour make good
substitutes)
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup milk
½ cup sugar or maple syrup
1 stick butter
½ cup raisins
Preheat oven to 400°F. Beat one egg and set aside. In a small bowl, combine the flour and spices. In a saucepan, heat milk until hot to the touch. In a mixer, cream together the sugar and butter. Add the egg yolks of the remaining two eggs and blend ingredients thoroughly. Add in the flour and mix on high until the mixture crumbles. Gradually add the milk until a soft dough forms.
Turn the dough out on a flat, clean surface and knead until it is uniform. Roll into a cylinder, then cut into roughly half-inch slices. Lay out on a baking sheet and brush with the reserved beaten egg.
Bake for 15 minutes, until golden brown.
Griddle Cakes
The Irish often served griddle cakes on Samhain and All Souls’ Day. These, much like pancakes, go best with syrup and hot butter.
Ingredients:
2 cups flour
¾ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup whole milk or yogurt
Sunflower oil
Sift the dry ingredients together, taking time to whisk with a fork so that the powder blends fine. Add the milk or yogurt a little bit at a time until a dough forms. Shape the dough into 2-inch circles about ½-inch thick. Fry in 1 tablespoon of sunflower oil in frying pan over medium heat; make sure to brown on both sides.
Colcannon (Irish Stew)
Colcannon is an Irish stew once popularly served on Samhain in Ireland. It was also featured in several different divination and magick traditions of the time, perhaps because it typically included potatoes and kale. A potato masher makes this recipe much easier, but a fork and determination can get the job done.
Ingredients:
1 head of kale or cabbage, with leaves sliced thin
1 stick butter, divided into three parts
1 cup of milk
7–8 potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon chives for garnish
Cover the kale with water and boil until it wilts but the leaves remain green, about thirty minutes. Drain the water and chop the kale into fine slivers. In the same pan, over medium heat, add one third of the butter. As it melts, stir in the kale. Add the milk and bring to a light boil. Next, add the potatoes, mashing them with a fork while they cook. As the potatoes soften, the mashing becomes easier. The potatoes are done when they have the same consistency as mashed potatoes. Add the next third of butter. Make a center in the resulting potato mound and add the last third of the butter.
Add any garnishes and serve warm.
Lamb’s Wool
Think of this beverage as the Scottish answer to sangria. While the flavoring varied by geography and preference in Great Britain, Lamb’s Wool typically consisted of half ale and half cider, heated with what spices were available. If you have a crockpot or even a pot on your stove, you can give this a try.
Ingredients:
Ale, light
Cider
1 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Stir together the ale and cider. Add the herbs. Bring to a simmer. Serve warm.
Crafts
Halloween and Samhain abound with crafting opportunities. Along with creating your own pieces of art to fill your home with a loving, spooky spirit, you can also turn crafts into magickal tools. After all, function following form is how many a kitchen and hedge witch operates! You can go kid-friendly with simple crafts that require basics such as glue, Popsicle sticks, and paint, or you can go advanced while using scoring knives and grownup glue such as Mod Podge. Think about your home and the way you practice faith and magick. Think about the type of Samhain celebration you want to have and then create accordingly!
Pumpkin Crafts
No vine appears so prolific as the pumpkin in autumn. From mini versions to fruits larger than a mastiff, any person can find something that suits the scale of his or her decorating ambitions. Thanks to their extreme abundance, many crafters and artists have come up with all sorts of innovative ways to use pumpkins in creative expression.
The carved pumpkin originates with the Irish tradition of carving turnips and beets. When the Irish came to the New World, pumpkins became their preferred Hallows night lamps.
Nowadays, jack-o’-lanterns still sit on many a porch, though in some areas they often fall victim to Halloween vandals. If you live in an area where your pumpkins might go untouched, you can go ahead and scoop and carve per tradition, or you can try some new methods of pumpkin crafting.
Scoring: Pin or tape a desired pattern to your pumpkin. Use the linoleum cutter to cut the surface skin of pumpkin along the lines of the pattern. Remove the paper and scrape off the remaining skin with a spoon, taking care not to cut through the pumpkin.
Decoupage: If you decide to decoupage your pumpkin, you will be painting it with glue. If you do this, you will have to give up eating it later—while the glue might be nontoxic, it’s hard to tell what is in the items you glue to the pumpkin.
Before you begin, you may want to dilute your glue with water. This makes the liquid thinner and easier to work with, especially when painting it on a large surface. Proportions for dilution are a matter of personal taste. In any empty container (don’t use one you use for food) pour out a little glue and add a little bit of water. Try adding 1/8 teaspoon water for every tablespoon of glue; add more water as you see fit.
You will need:
Newspapers or a drop cloth
A container for water
Glue, such as Mod Podge
Brushes or rollers
Items you wish to glue on your pumpkin (i.e., small charms, paper printouts, magazine cut outs, and/or strips of fabric)
An acrylic spray
Hot glue gun (optional)
Scissors
In a well-ventilated workspace, lay down the newspaper or drop cloth. Set out a container of water to dilute the glue. Pick one section of the pumpkin and add a light layer of glue with a brush or roller. Once you have coated the pumpkin, add the paper or fabric you want in that section. Add an additional layer of glue over top. You may need to pause to roll out wrinkles in the paper or gently straighten bumps that appear as the glue dries using light pressure with your finger. Once you have applied the paper and glue to the first section of the pumpkin, rotate and repeat until you have finished. You may wish to add a few additional layers of glue to all sides of the pumpkin. The glue will dry clear, so paint it over top of the images. Allow the glue to dry overnight. Take the pumpkin to a well-ventilated place, such as a porch or garage and coat it with the acrylic spray. Allow to dry, and then add an additional layer of acrylic. Allow this to dry overnight. If you wish, after, use a hot glue gun to apply charms, beads, or small toys to the pumpkin. Allow to dry overnight, and then place it where you wish to display it.
Decoupaged pumpkin
Print: If you would like a fast and dirty way to decorate a pumpkin, just print on it. All you need is a permanent marker and a few words in mind. Write on your pumpkin in large letters. You might want to be quirky, leaving messages like “Eat at Joe’s,” or go referential, such as “Nevermore.” If you have the skill, you may want to draw silhouettes or even sketch portraits. Write a poem, tell
a story, or just leave instructions for package delivery.
Pin It: Pumpkins have spongy tissue with the same consistency as cork. You can use it as a de facto corkboard or even spell a few things out with pins. Pick a side of the pumpkin and push in pins or tacks. Get creative and make shapes, faces, runes, or even an image of a favorite tarot card!
Costumes
Part of the joy of Samhain comes from the chance to be someone else for a night; in a way, it is a form of travel, an opportunity to experience your everyday paths through the eyes of a different personality. Some Pagans incorporate costumes into a magickal practice called aspecting, where they temporarily assume a part of another consciousness. This happens most often in a Wiccan ceremony called Drawing Down the Moon. In this ritual, often the person steps aside and the goddess invoked takes charge. There are those who also practice a variation where they temporarily share consciousness with the deity—some see it as a magickal version of method acting.
Wearing costumes at Samhain dates back to the early Druids when villagers dressed up as animals. Commercial costumes, however, did not appear until the 1930s when the Irish in America began influencing the way all Americans celebrated Halloween.
If you want to explore a different perspective, explore a few different approaches to your costume, assembling it with your own sewing skills, or putting together items you find at garage sales and thrift shops.
A few ideas for a Samhain/Halloween costume:
1. Dress as a god or goddess that you work with on a regular basis.
2. Dress as an element of nature you are trying to learn and understand.
3. Dress as a historic or mythological witch or magician. Circe, Medea, Nicholas Flamel, Joan of Arc, Heinrich Agrippa are all connected to Samhain because of their contributions to magick and mysticism.
4. Dress as the personification of an abstract concept such as fear, love, mathematics, or quantum physics.
As you go about Samhain in costume, observe how taking on the new persona changes how you think and how you see the world. After the merriment, meditate on the lessons you took from the experience.
Make a Mask
If you don’t want to go full-aspect but still want to try a change of perspective, make a mask. While again you can purchase a ready-made one, you can also make your own and adjust it to any worldview you want to experience.
You will need:
A blank mask template
Hot glue
Feathers, beads, ribbons
Glue the small items you have gathered around your mask in any pattern or configuration you like, taking care to leave room around the nose and eyes.
You can also make a mask with a paper bag.
You will need:
A grocery-size paper bag
Scissors
Crayons, paint, or markers
A stapler
A sewing tape measure
Sewing elastic, such as what might be used for the waist of a skirt or pants
Cut out an oval, square, or circle from the grocery bag. Make sure the oval is large enough to cover your face. Cut two eyeholes and a small slit around where you nose would go (to facilitate breathing). Decorate the mask with the crayons, paint, and so on. When finished, measure the circumference of your head and divide that by two. Use that measurement to decide how much elastic to cut. Staple each end of the elastic so that the ends of the staple will not touch your skin.
Spin Your Fears
This craft combines two magick-minded activities: meditation and divination. This simple wheel, made from a paper plate, gives you a playful way to explore the serious psychological aspects of the Samhain season.
You will need:
Construction paper
Scissors
A paper plate
Crayons or markers
A fastener, such as the type you get at an office supply store
Cut a small isosceles triangle out of the construction paper, which will become a pointer. Set that aside. Take a marker and divide the paper plate into at least four pie-shaped sections. In each section, write the name of a fear or a specific Samhain-related theme. Take the paper fastener and use it to attach the triangle to the plate. When ready to meditate on a topic, spin the triangle and focus on the theme it picks for you.
Make a Gravestone Rubbing
This craft requires a field trip. Go to an older cemetery, one where there are more upright stones. This method does not work quite as well on the newer grave markers as the modern markers have less texture.
You will need:
A large sheet of paper, such as what you can get from a jumbo drawing pad
A large crayon
Go to a cemetery and find a stone with an interesting pattern. Place the paper over the stone and rub the crayon sideways in short, fast motions until the stone pattern appears on the page. Fill up the page with the pattern. When finished, name the person on the memorial and say “thank you.” Clean up the grave if it looks untended, and make sure to pick up after yourself.
Use these as part of your Halloween decorations, or, if you chose an ancestor’s grave, make it part of an ancestral altar.
Gravestone rubbing
Make a Parshell
A parshell is a type of cross intended to protect children from mean-spirited faeries. While it came to be associated with the Christian cross, it predates its presence in Europe. It really works as more of an X type cross—a figure that can often stop outside magick in its tracks or seal magick of your own.
Parshell
You will need:
Two sticks—any type of wood is fine
Wheat stalks, rye stalks, or corn husk leaves
Twine
Cross the sticks to form a plus. Wrap the wheat stalks around the two sticks so that they weave together. Tie the twine along the same path as the wheat stems, adding a bowman’s knot in the back to reinforce. Hang above your child’s bed or even your own.
Samhain Ritual Crafts
Many Pagans have certain ritual items that they make themselves, either to save money or because what they need isn’t easily available in stores. The following are just a few small things you might wish to make your own home ritual.
Samhain Oil
You will need:
1 tablespoon sunflower or olive oil
1 tablespoon calendula flowers
1 tablespoon marigold flowers
1 piece frankincense resin
Combine all the ingredients in a small bottle and leave in a sunny window until ready for use.
Samhain Loose Incense
Burn this herb mix over charcoal briquettes.
You will need:
1 teaspoon myrrh
1 teaspoon frankincense resin
1 teaspoon copal resin
Mix well. Burn a pinch at a time.
Samhain Bath Salts
You will need:
½ cup Epsom salt
½ cup sea salt
1 teaspoon vegetable glycerin
10 drops basil essential oil
10 drops camphor essential oil
11 drops vetiver essential oil
Pour the salts and glycerin into a shatterproof container (for safety in the bathroom.) Add the essential oils. Stir with a chopstick. Shake just before adding to water.
Samhain Divination Potion
Drink this potion right before you sit down to the tarot cards or play a traditional Samhain game. It helps relax you enough to accept and consider images from your subconscious mind without incapacitating you. Don’t take this if you plan to drive within the hour.
You will need for one serving:
10 drops kava tincture
1 teaspoon mugwort
1 teaspoon meadowsweet
Dried orange peel to taste
1 cup boiling water
Assemble ingredients in a tea strainer. Steep for 7–13 minutes. Remove the strainer and ingredients; allow the tea to cool to a touchable temperature. Drink. Do not exceed three servings in an evening.
If you are looking for more Halloween and Samhain crafts, be sure to check your local library as well as websites such as Pinterest, CraftGawker, and About.com. Samhain is an inspiring season; you are bound to find some activity that suits your home and skill.
Decoration
Samhain is probably the most fun holiday for decorations. You can adopt a silly, spooky, or solemn motif—the approach should reflect how you plan to observe the holiday. Colors are the Halloween-emblematic orange and black or purple, though autumn spectrum colors such as red, brown, or yellow go well, too.
Go Spooky: If you wish to go spooky, you have endless choices. Retailers get almost as excited and excessive about Halloween as they do about Christmas! Throw artfully torn cheesecloth over all your furniture, hang fake spider webs from the corner (or just leave the ones that evolve naturally in place), and festoon flat surfaces with black candles, skulls, and pumpkins.
Go Solemn: You may prefer a more serious, muted observance. An ancestor’s altar is one of the most profound forms of decor you can establish for Samhain. On a mantle or a table, display pictures of loved ones and personal heroes who have passed on. Add personal effects of those loved ones to that altar; these can be pieces of favorite candies, bottles of perfume, books, or even toys that you inherited. Throughout the month, you can write notes to your departed loved ones and place them on a bowl on the mantle. The rest of your house could continue with the decorations you set up for Mabon in muted fall tones, making Samhain in your house a meditation as much as a celebration.
Prepare a Path for the Ancestors
Slavic and Latin peoples both prepared for literal visits from their departed ancestors during Samhain season. People cleaned their homes, prepared lavish meals, and dressed in their nicest clothing. To formally host your own beloved dead, incorporate these traditions into your decor.
Those who celebrate Dia de los Muertos make an effort to help their ancestors find their way home. One way they do this is by lining their walkways with luminaries. Traditionally these are paper lanterns that cover candles. If you live in a windy area, however, candles may not stay lit. Fortunately, these days, small LED lights are available—you can even purchase the tea light style in packs. You can create simple luminaries by decorating brown paper bags with crayons or by cutting patterns into them and placing the lights inside. If you’d like to do a slightly different luminary path, try buying a series of small magnifying glasses and placing the lights just behind them. Since most LED candles flicker by design, this will create a play of light and shadow leading down the path to your door.
Ancestor Altars
Make your ancestors even more welcome by setting up an altar to honor them. Along with pictures of them from when they were alive, add small mementos from their lives. If they were not the type to collect items, you may want to write poems or put a Mason jar and paper out where you can write down small memories of the person to store in the jar.
If you live in a small space, a full altar might be difficult to maintain. In that case, try creating a mini-altar with a shadow box you can get from a craft store or make a terrarium style altar with miniature objects relating to the people in your family who you wish to honor. You need not buy special equipment for the terrarium, and it does not have to have plants. An inverted Mason jar or baby food jar will still work.
In addition to the altar, you might want to print out or create wall cutouts relating to family seals and family mottos from any known ancestral lines. For example, people of Scottish descent often had specific tartan patterns, and many families throughout Great Britain and Europe had family mottos and crests that represented their family heritage.
Dumb Supper Settings
If you plan to host a dumb supper, it is traditional to have a white tablecloth. Part of this tradition is that as your family toasts to the memories of the departed you spill a little on the cloth as an offering to them. Make sure it’s a cloth you don’t mind staining. Keep at least one seat empty; two or more is optimal. While eating in silence, pay attention to natural phenomena. Slavic peoples believed that anything from a breeze to the appearance of a moth during the dinner represented the presence of ancestor.
After the meal, set sugar skulls outside next to your luminaries (unless this will draw unwanted critters.) While adults give the skulls to children on the Day of the Dead, most do not eat them. Instead, they leave them outside on graves and tombs, so that the rain and other elements wear them away, allowing their ancestors to enjoy them.
Fend Off the Creatures of the Night
Perhaps you align with the old Irish tradition of keeping the frightening spirits of the night at bay. You can decorate your home to act as a fortress against the intruders. Decorate your front door with eyes—this looks like a play on Halloween spookiness but also represents turning back the evil eye and evil intentions. Line the walkway with cardboard headstones cut from shipping boxes. Instead of making them for celebrities or specific ancestors, put the names of the things that scare you on it; by symbolically putting these headstones in the ground, you take power over those fears. Use chalk to write protective incantations over your sidewalk, windows, and doors.
You could also write a faery story or a ghost story on your sidewalk or driveway, or perhaps quote poetry or phrases from Irish poet W. B. Yeats. If someone walking by stops to talk to you, invite that person to contribute to the story.
Decorate your windows with silhouettes and draw the shades as a backdrop. You can find printouts online of everything from bats and owls to the shadows of Victorian people. Add a wreath to your front door; in place of the usual fall leaves, make one from tissue paper flowers. Alternatively, you can make an iron wreath, gluing together old nails and screws into a circular pattern, or adding them to a premade straw wreath.
If you have sincere safety concerns, motion sensor toys that are popular and available during Halloween season come in handy. Place them at points around your home that you consider vulnerable. It will be an effective alert system if some living creature of the night attempts to make mischief.
Add a Little Hollywood Haunting
If your tastes run to the more modern, add references to your favorite scary or magickal movies and television shows. Print out stills from movies such as The Serpent and the Rainbow or The Skeleton Key and add a few elements from the movie to your decor and food, for instance, stringing actual skeleton keys in a garland. If you loved Practical Magick, serve margaritas.
Should you feel especially ambitious, decorate your space with a haunted movie theater theme. Hang thick curtains over your television and draw them closed when no one is watching. Hide rubber skeletons in coat and broom closets. Play up the silly spookiness by adding a fake trapdoor or set out a big, spooky book with random geometric patterns as an Evil Dead reference or create a shrine to Disney witches from Angela Lansbury to Angelina Jolie.
Divine the Future
If you prefer a less solemn celebration but still have some old-fashioned urbane tastes, set up your home to look like a Victorian divination parlor. Hang prints of vintage Halloween cards on the walls, especially those that refer to old superstitions. Gather fabric and ribbons to line stairwells and ledges with bunting. Place black netting over mirrors to make them look like they wear mourning veils. Use chalk to write names on your fireplace or at your stove, and hide tarot cards around your front room, challenging your guests to find all of them and put them together in readings of their own. Set up a table and chair in one corner of a room covered with a tablecloth in the style of the spiritualist mediums. Add printouts of spirit photography at different spots around the room. Incorporate references to Victorian era writers: Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, and Nathaniel Hawthorne were especially spooky.
Hang Mobiles
Mobiles are simple to make. All you need is a hanger, some string, a hole punch, and the material you wish to hang. Make a rune mobile, then whatever one a guest reaches up and grabs depicts that person’s fortune. You might want to hang mobiles of apple shapes, as a reference to the game in which people tried to catch apples with their teeth. If you have a tarot deck with a few cards missing, this is a great way to give some life to the remaining deck.
Paper Doll Cutouts
Gather some old newspaper or use construction paper and cut out Halloween shapes. You can hang these garlands around your windows and along your ceilings. If your guests wish, let them take single pieces of the chain home to use in their own magick when seeking sweethearts, protection, or job promotions. You can find instructions online for producing different shapes in paper chains.
Make Your Own Halloween Wall Stickers
Find a pattern to trace, get some spray adhesive, shelf liner, and a box cutter. You can then make your own wall cutouts. Cut different shapes—perhaps the shapes of Victorian furniture to stick to your walls—to give the impression of two points in time happening at once in your living room for an extra feeling of seasonal spookiness.
You and your family may want to work out a way to celebrate both Halloween and Samhain. For Samhain, establish set traditions that honor your beloved dead. Those should stay more or less the same from year to year (though when big changes come, it will feel natural to change the way you practice, and that’s okay.) For Halloween, change your approach from year to year and play with themes. It is possible to have fun and show some humor with the Samhain season, while still honoring its spiritual nature.