It dawned on us that although we've been married 19 years, we'd never actually done a Christmas in our own place. Liz has never actually cooked the Christmas Turkey or had guests round. We have always been invited to spend it with Pud Lady and Tom (and, obviously we have been delighted to do so and very grateful to be asked) or we have been asked over to Silverwood to share theirs. Again, we have no problems with that and it was wonderful but now that we have our own place in Roscommon we are determined to correct this imbalance and we are going to do it here so that the Silverwoods can come to us and be spared the need to worry about cooking and kitchen stuff!
Along these same lines, we are also looking to enjoy doing OUR Roscommon version of any other festivals, High Days and Holy Days which come along. The first of these (maybe not a 'Holy' day?) coming our way was Hallowe'en which, here in Ireland, the locals go mad for it seems in lieu of a UK style Bonfire night and Guy Fawkes. It gets very American and all the kids dress up and go out Trick or Treating so anyone who wants to take part decorates the front of their house with appropriate pumpkins and any amount of lit up witchery, plastic tombstones and black-hooded, scythe-wielding, Old Father Time effigies, and stocks up on chocolates and Haribo sweeties for the marauding hordes of kiddies.
Now we live quite a way outside our tiny village and we were not at all sure how many Trick or Treaters might come our way but we decided to try a pumpkin on the gate pier and bought an 850g tub of Cadbury's Celebrations. Luckily, a couple of days prior we also met some kiddies who we knew lived in the nearest big house out walking a dog and established that they were, indeed Trick or Treating on the day.
On the night, about 7pm we were duly invaded by a nice selection of small ghouls, witches and ghosties accompanied by 2 Hi-Viz clad Mums. These were, by all accounts, "all the children in the village" (there were 8) who do this in one big posse. The Mums also, apparently pre-visit some of the senior citizens like our own John Deere Bob who don't really 'know about' Trick or Treating and give them a box of suitable sweets which they can give to the children on the night. The Mums were therefore delighted that we, the 'new people' had opted to join in the fun. The Mums, both in local family we will call McG, are quite close neighbours but we have to shamefully admit (as did they) to not having actually got around to calling on one another since we moved in, so it was nice to be able to say hello and to promise to go meet each other properly. We must actually DO this and not leave it another 10 months!
Happy Hallowe'en!
1 comment:
Just need to point out, as it has been to me on many an occasion, the tradition of trick or treating was actually started in Ireland, so the Americans are more doing the Irish thing rather than the other way around.
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