Wishing everyone a happy Halloween!
To celebrate witches and pumpkins and the cracked-open door between the living and the dead, I would like to offer you my Halloween short story, "Misty and the Magic Pumpkin Knife" free through Nov. 3:
Misty Mankin hated Halloween. She hated ghosts and princesses and black and orange. Especially orange. She hated frozen pumpkin pie, the most common kind in Rolynka, Alaska. She hated witches and masks and what qualified as seasonal office parties near the Arctic Circle. She hated all the interruptions of her evening accompanied by screaming and giggling and variations from innocent to profane on the three words "trick or treat."
She particularly hated the pumpkin knife - and the fact that it contained the ghost of her mother...
If you don't have a copy yet, do please be my guest and grab one!
When I first came to Germany, many decades ago, there was no such thing as Halloween. All Hallows, the first of November, is a religious holiday here, and those with regular jobs get the day off. But the evening before All Hallows, the night when the door between the worlds of the living and the dead is open a bit wider than usual -- that seems to have it's roots in the Irish Celtic festival of Samhain. Immigrants brought Halloween to the US, where it eventually became the second biggest money-making holiday after Christmas.
Here in Germany, though, there isn't much left of the Celts who once dominated most of northern Europe. Halloween is an import on the part of clever marketing folks who wanted to sell costumes left over from Fasching -- otherwise known as Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday. That is still the big dress up and get crazy party here in Germany, at least for adults. But in the last decade or so, Halloween has become a big event for the younger ones.
My favorite witches
Misty Mankin hated Halloween. She hated ghosts and princesses and black and orange. Especially orange. She hated frozen pumpkin pie, the most common kind in Rolynka, Alaska. She hated witches and masks and what qualified as seasonal office parties near the Arctic Circle. She hated all the interruptions of her evening accompanied by screaming and giggling and variations from innocent to profane on the three words "trick or treat."
She particularly hated the pumpkin knife - and the fact that it contained the ghost of her mother...
If you don't have a copy yet, do please be my guest and grab one!
When I first came to Germany, many decades ago, there was no such thing as Halloween. All Hallows, the first of November, is a religious holiday here, and those with regular jobs get the day off. But the evening before All Hallows, the night when the door between the worlds of the living and the dead is open a bit wider than usual -- that seems to have it's roots in the Irish Celtic festival of Samhain. Immigrants brought Halloween to the US, where it eventually became the second biggest money-making holiday after Christmas.
Here in Germany, though, there isn't much left of the Celts who once dominated most of northern Europe. Halloween is an import on the part of clever marketing folks who wanted to sell costumes left over from Fasching -- otherwise known as Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday. That is still the big dress up and get crazy party here in Germany, at least for adults. But in the last decade or so, Halloween has become a big event for the younger ones.
My favorite witches