Tag Archives: halloween

Fall is Here and it’s Taking us by Storm!

Get out your over-sized sweatshirts, your jeans, and Uggs! That’s right it’s time for FALL! Fall is the time of year to be stylish yet comfortable. For example a regular fall outfit for me would be a pair of my favorite black leggings, and an oversized sweatshirts with my tan UGG boots. I feel great, and I look great too! Fall can mean many things to a person. Cuddling by a warm fire, carving pumpkins with friends, or getting a new outfit! Fall also means Halloween! Halloween goes back to the middle ages, when poor people would beg for “soul-cakes” or a sweet treat, and pray for dead relatives to come back. Trick-or-treating however became popular in the 1800’s when children played pranks and then asked for candy. I’m guessing they didn’t get much! But by the 1950’s though, it turned into good old family fun and getting candy, like we know today. Another thing to think about that is on every kid’s mind is “What am I going to be this year?” The pressing question is one I know everyone thinks about at least once during fall! I know I do! So when you are thinking of what you’re going to be for halloween think of these few questions to help guide you:

-What haven’t I been yet?

-What have I been wanting to dress up as but never got around to it?

-What’s my favorite T.V show?

-Who’s my favorite character or actor/actress?

-Who’s my favorite singer?

Well I hope those few pointers helped! So, when you are preparing for the on coming fall season, remember to stay warm!

~Bre

“KEENE” Eyesight and a Toothy Grin…

Every year the town of Keene New Hampshire closes its’ streets to make way for the annual Pumpkin Festival.  This fall classic event has been running for twenty-two years and has been featured in the Guinness Book of World Records eight times.  As you make your way down the pumpkin-lined streets, your senses will go into Halloween OVERLOAD just trying to take in the thousands and thousands of carved and decorated jack-o-lanterns.   The smells and tastes of fall treats like pumpkin pie and apple cider are everywhere and music fills the air.  The festival currently holds the record for “The most lit jack-o’-lanterns on display (30,581)–October 19, 2013.”

I have attended the pumpkin festival five times and it is one of my favorite things to do!  My family and I are actually part of a Guinness Book of World Records record!! Every time we have gone to the “Pumpkin Fest” we have brought several carved pumpkins.  We have contributed the Grim Reaper, Indiana Jones stealing the jewel, regular jack-o-lanterns, a witch and many others.  Some of the most memorable jack-o-lanterns I have seen at the festival include a very intricately carved spider web, a pumpkin snowman made from three different sized pumpkins, and a really cool vampire!  If you want to see lots of amazing jack-o-lanters and possibly contribute to a new world record, try the Pumpkin Festival in Keene, New Hampshire.

~Ethan

When are you too old to Trick- or -Treat?

 

Nobody wants to be that downer of a neighbor who tells kids they are too old to trick or treat. But, someone has to do it. You don’t need to rain on their parade if they are behaving, not out too late, and if they have an appropriate costume. Honestly though, when does that happen? The little cuties go trick or treating and are back home sorting their candy by 9 pm at the latest. For the older kids, the time has just begun. Many candy givers have to go to work the next day, so answering the door constantly is super annoying.  In some towns, there is a law for trick or treating! For example, in Washington County, Maryland trick treaters can dress up and ask for candy from 6-8pm, as long as they are under the age of twelve. Seems to me there should be something in the middle of total restrictions, and a free-for-all candy night.

As a thirteen year old, already planning my Halloween costume for this year, I don’t think I’m too old to go trick or treating. However, I’m not going to be super rowdy either. I won’t be obnoxiously loud, or wearing a super scary costume. And, off the streets by 9:30. I do agree, that some people who stay out late, or are disruptive and a high schooler probably shouldn’t be Trick-or-treating. After all, the average kid has been trick or treating since age 2, so at the least they had a good 10 year run. When they have kids they’ll go out for 10 years for every kid. 20 plus years seems more than enough to me.

~Tess

CHOCOLATE- A DANGER?

Careful!!! This Halloween, you may want to be more cautious with your dog. If he/she consumes two to three ounces of chocolate, it can make a 50 lb. dog very sick. That wouldn’t be too good, would it?  Be careful of dropping any candy that contains any sort of chocolate in it! It’s too dangerous to take the risk. There are chemicals in chocolate that are similar to caffeine, called methylxanthines. Many dogs love the smell and taste of chocolate.  The darker the chocolate is, the more toxic it probably is.

So, now you obviously know to NOT take the risk of leaving tiny crumbs of Reese’s or Kit Kat or any other chocolate containing product lying on the floor and being too lazy to take 5 seconds to pick it up. I don’t have a dog, but, I do have 2 cats. I will be so aware of dropping any on the ground, especially on Halloween. I know it takes an extra effort to actually bend down, pick it up, then get back up. Although, I’d rather have my pets safe. It would make me feel so terrible to know that I didn’t take the short amount of time to take back the chocolate that I dropped the other day and made my cat get sick or poisoned!!!! It’s probably the same for you, too! I think it is great to have the habit of throwing out whatever you drop on the ground, even if it isn’t chocolate! I hope that all of you that read this start this habit too. Pets don’t know what they are or aren’t supposed to eat, so you have to pick it up, yourself, to keep them healthy. I know you love your pets, just like me, so KEEP THEM SAFE!

~Alexa Wetmore

Halloween Is Almost Here!

Candy, costumes, haunted houses, haunted hayrides, and parties….there’s only one thing that can relate to all of these, and it’s a holiday all kids get excited for – you guessed it, it’s Halloween! Halloween is finally approaching us again, and it’s sure to be a good one, now that there won’t be a blizzard to cancel it, unlike last year. I love Halloween because I always look forward to going to the Haunted Graveyard at Lake Compounce, and it’s a frightening but also fun way to get excited for Halloween. I also love it because it’s fun filling up on candy and hanging out with friends. Everybody thinks of dressing up and getting candy when they hear the word “Halloween”, but this fun holiday also has a rather extended history most people have never heard of.

Halloween dates back nearly 2,000 years ago to the ancient Celtic Festivals of Samhain in Ireland. Annually on October 31st, the Celtic people would celebrate Samhain. It was believed that on this day, ghosts of the dead would return to the Earth, hence ghosts playing a large role in today’s Halloween festivites. To celebrate the event, huge sacred bonfires were built to burn crops and sacrifice animals to the Celtic deities, and the Celts wore costumes, which started the custom of dressing into costumes every Halloween. Halloween did not arrive in America until colonial times, which was many centuries later, when customs and beliefs of European ethnic groups and American indians came together. During this age, Halloween celebrations consisted of story telling of the dead, ghost stories, fortune telling, mischief-making, dancing, and singing. Immigrants fleeing from Ireland because of the potato famine in 1846 helped to increase the popularity of Halloween celebrations. Thanks to Irish and English traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and beg for food and money, going from house to house, eventually evolving into what we now know as “trick-or-treating”. If it weren’t for the Celtics 2,000 years ago, October 31st would just be a typical day!

~Julia Marcouiller

A White Halloween ???

Summer has just ended about two weeks ago. Expecting some nice fall weather? Well its not going to happen because of snow. Yes, snow. Who would have guessed that three days before Halloween, Connecticut and other states will get about 10 inches of snow. Usually, this happens around the of middle December. In previous years, I found it rare to get snow in November. But in October?! Plenty of schools already lost a day(s!) of school during hurricane Irene, and missing more because of this wretched storm. This means that five days will get piled on to the end of the school. Not to mention, this is even before winter!

As you fellow people of Connecticut remember how many days of school we lost last year due to snow. Yeah sure, we missed school but being trapped indoors with no electricity and for some, no running water!   We can agree that having snow like this isn’t fun as it used to be when being a little kid. The reason this snow storm occurred was because warm moist air from the Atlantic ocean collided with cold dry air from Canada, creating a rare storm to cause 10 inches of snow to slam northern New England. This historic weather event will always be remembered.

Nick Roche