Bavarian Beer Maids and Jack-O-Lanterns, Fear & Loathing for Halloween [Ice Cream Sundae]

I hope you ’ rhenium good. It ’ mho already Halloween future workweek, it ’ sulfur on a Saturday this year. Do you have plans to celebrate ?

I ’ meter indisputable you know the consequence is about honouring dead saints, a christian custom many scholars agree was influenced from ancient Celtic crop festivals, marking the end of summer.

During these festivals, such as Gaelic Samhain ( end of summer in Gaelic ), and from at least the sixteenth century it was tradition at that time of year for young people to dress up and go from house to firm threatening maleficence or offer songs in change for food and drink, in some parts as the form of a soul cake made to commemorate the dead.

The custom of Jack-O-Lanterns apparently comes from an previous irish folktale. One day while drink after an flush of fun, Jack was walking second home, crossed paths with the Devil and managed to trick him into agreeing to never take his soul. He kept on drinking, revel, living a generally iniquitous life, so after death he was turned down at the doors of Heaven. He wasn ’ thyroxine going to Hell either and the Devil threw him a live ember straight at him. To stop it from going out, Jack hollowed out a turnip to set the part of hot coal and prevent it from going out. Since then, Jack and his lantern have been stuck on Earth, looking for a place to rest.

Jack-O-Lanterns were primitively carved into turnips and used to frighten evil spirits away in the night. once on the new continent, American pilgrims apparently found out their local pumpkins were larger and easier to carve than turnips. It has become the fruit of option to this day. I ’ ve carved pumpkins for Halloween these past few years and am getting better at it. They ’ ra no respect winners but I ’ m glad with the results. It ’ sulfur enjoyable and they look bang-up with candles.

Costume parties are of naturally another traditional feature of Halloween in the US, arsenic well as in the UK, though I think the british are more probable to have illusion dress parties for whatever reason throughout the year, as they call them.

I was a adolescent when I made one of my best Halloween party costumes, in the community center of a village not excessively far away from where I lived. Being a fan of the fairly recent Addams Family movie at the time ( and of the television receiver series excessively ), I chose to dress as Cousin It. It was credibly the most involve homework I did for a costume ( pun intended ). It was very simple but not that easy in the end. I found myself a white summer hat with lace-like holes and bought balls of embrown threaded cotton and wool. You can imagine cutting and fitting the wool over the hat to full size me, it took hours to have adequate to completely cover my body. I added another hat on top, a pair of glasses and speculate done. I couldn ’ thymine see a thing but I remember the costume was a success. On the summation side I could easily remove it to dance late in the evening.

I had respective capital Halloween parties while I lived in London, a ally there was born on the 31st October so some of those were mix in with his birthday. He dressed as characters from the Watchmen comic with friends one prison term. They were brilliant. I ’ d decided to dress up as The Dude, pretty much as he was in his bathrobe at the begin of The Big Lebowski. Sunglasses, shorts, and flip flops ( rather of sandals, that was a mistake ). People recognized the character so that worked out well. I started the party with a group of friends and then we made our way to a second party at my brother ’ s restaurant.

My best and most hideous costume to date is most surely the Bavarian Beer Maid for the Halloween party friends and I organised at my home in Singapore two years ago. I had a big apartment and we were excited about organising a big house party there. I asked for costume inspiration to friends on Facebook, and person suggested a beer maid, given I was already building the beer amateurish & dwelling brewer reputation. I liked the estimate, and thinking about it tied though it ’ s a popular option for many men at costume parties, I ’ vitamin d never cross dressed as a charwoman that I remembered. obviously young people cross-dress was a traditional expression of the celebrations in some parts of Wales and Scotland.

I looked at colorful photos of Oktoberfest in Munich for inspiration on-line. I besides looked at costume websites. I came across this amusing one and it was precisely excessively perfect and silly to pass up : A bavarian beer maid costume for men, including a copulate of huge credit card juke breasts with taps that one could fill with liquor, and have people drink from. In early words, nothing but class. It is adenine pathetic at you ’ re probably picturing it right now, if not more.

We besides put a fortune of effort in the decoration, including a classify of enshrine outside the main door featuring honest-to-god creepy black and flannel photos of children, actual chicken feet, cobweb, and candles. We felt having a bull ’ mho liver in a jar would be an important rig man even though most people didn ’ triiodothyronine see it ( it was supposed to be a heart, I ’ m not certain it would ’ ve been better ). The Jell-O shot syringes delivered delivered by a ally dressed as a harbor and another as a french maid were vastly popular though. The party even had a identify : Dr O ’ sulfur Haunted Mansion, if I remember correctly.

I think it was probably the busiest and most popular party I hosted in Singapore, plus the cops came to stop the music after besides many complaints from neighbours. I was trying to be dangerous talking to the police while of course laughably inebriated and having wholly forgotten I was wearing a blond wig, a bunch of makeup and gigantic bogus breasts in my costume. It was a memorable party.

There ’ s no right or amiss age to have playfulness at Halloween, laughing in the face of the chilling gorge that goes bump in the night. Dressing up for costume parties, carving pumpkins, baking and eating cakes and sugarcoat, going trick-or-treating with children, decorating the house with skittish farce, watching chilling movies, remembering the spirits of the dead and depart. There are batch of options, it would be shame to deprive yourself merely because it ’ south become besides commercial an event, or whatever else your cause is.

Have a fantastic Halloween, forward to a friend if you ’ ve enjoy reading !

Cheers
Willem

This newsletter was in the first place published via electronic mail on the 25th October 2015. You can sign up to receive Ice Cream Sundae via e-mail via the Ice Cream for Everyone web site .