All Hallows Eve

Halloween is my favorite holiday for several reasons: I love candy, I love dressing up, and most of all..... I love spooking myself and my friends. Yesterday I literally hit a gold mine when I discovered the website Cracked.Com - have you ever heard of it? Well.... I got caught up reading about Urban Legends that aren't really legends at all! I think the most chilling one was about a man who had gotten a job offer and was told to go to a specific hostil and wait for someone to pick him up. Soon after he arrived, two men drugged him and he woke up strapped to a gurney in unbearable pain. They stole his kidney and sold it on the black market! Then there's a story about a couple who was spending the night in a hotel room. There was an unidentifiable stench coming from underneath the bed, and after sleeping through the entire night they finally reported the smell to the front desk. Let's just say this - next time I visit a hotel, I will be looking under the bed from now on.... there was a rotting corpse hidden in their boxspring!!! There are four articles on these sort of creepy legends.... check them out here, here, here, and here. I literally could not stop reading once I started...

I will more than likely be neglecting my blog until Monday, because I will be busy dressing up/casting spells/eating candy/howling at the moon and hanging out with two of my best college friends who will be here tomorrow! I'm super excited [if you couldn't already tell]!

10 Really Cool Facts About Halloween:

for more... check out here - the place I got all of this info from :)

[1.] Some believe that Halloween is derived from the Celtic New Year, which celebrates the end of spring/summer (the "lighter half" of the year) and the beginning of fall/winter (the "darker half"). They believed that on this night, the border between this world and that of the afterlife became espcially thin and spirits -both good and evil- could pass through.

[2.] The tradition of wearing costumes came from the thought that this practice would ward off evil spirits. The idea is that if you look like an evil spirit, the real spirits will avoid you.

[so all you un-fun people out there, you better dress up this year!]

[3.] The reason it's popular to carve and light pumpkins comes from the tradition of commemorating souls in purgatory and to also ward off evil spirits. [they used to use turnips, but we now use pumpkins because they're larger and more plentiful]

[4.] Ever wonder why Halloween colors consist of black and orange? Black represents the darkness of the night and orange represents the color of the leaves, bonfires and pumpkins.

[5.] In Scotland, some children take the term trick or treat literally. They perform some sort of trick, such as singing a song or telling a ghost story, and in turn they are given a treat.

[6.] Trick-or-treating resembles the late medieval practice of souling, when poor folk would go door to door on Hallowmas (November 1), receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day(November 2).

[7.] Here's a fun game: In the 19th century, unmarried women were told that if they sat in a darkened room and gazed into a mirror on Halloween night, the face of their future husband would appear in the mirror. However, if they were destined to die before marriage, a skull would appear. To me, it sounds a lot like the game Bloody Mary I used to play as a kid... which let's be honest, is much more fun!

[8.] Haunted attractions in the United States bring in an estimate $300–500 million each year, and draw some 400,000 customers.

[9.] Remember you mother warning you about razor blades being hidden in apples and throwing away candy that wasn't wrapped? At the peak of the hysteria, some hospitals offered free X-rays of children's Halloween hauls in order to find evidence of tampering.

[10.] Did you know that apples used to be a symbol of fertility? The game bobbing for apples originated from this belief and it was thought that the first to grab an apple in their teeth would be the first to marry. Girls who place the apple they bobbed under their pillows are said to dream of their future lover.[fun fact: they used to throw apples at weddings rather than rice... ouuuuuch!]

Have a happy and safe Halloween!!

both pictures found on weheartit.com