Happy Thanksgiving!

Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home;
All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin.

I always loved this hymn, a holdover from my church upbringing. Thanksgiving is a special holiday to me, and it's one I appreciate. I hate that it gets buried in the ever-lengthening run up to Christmas.

It's so important to stop, breathe, and give thanks.

Lovely cashmere

My aunt sent me this lovely cashmere jacket. It is sooooo soft. The pictures don't do it justice. It's like a blazer. I want to wear it, but I dread risking dirt or stains! I will have to be careful.

Oh gracious

I blogged every day in October and then faded away!

Here are some pictures from our Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows yard:
Dorm room

Potions class


The graveyard


Astoria Greengrass with Professor Trelawney

The Grim!

Halloween History Countdown - Day 31

I made it through the whole month, and now Halloween is nearly history. It was a lovely night. We had lots of fun, and I had a great time with my countdown. It's always nice when you do what you set out to do - blog every night for a month!

Our Halloween theme this year was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This is Hogsmeade and the Shrieking Shack (at a distance):


I was Professor Trelawny, complete with a grim at the bottom of the tea cup. More pictures later - our yard was awesome.

Halloween History Countdown - Day 30

Here's one of my favorite spooky legends, with more information from Snopes.com:
Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary!

Legend: Chanting "Bloody Mary!" three times in front of a candlelit mirror will summon a vengeful spirit.

Origins: The research into Bloody Mary goes Come to me . . . back to 1978, when folklorist Janet Langlois published her essay on the legend. Belief in summoning the mirror-witch was even at that time widespread throughout the U.S.

Mary is summoned whenever squealing girls get together for a sleepover, but boys have been known to call on her too. (The 'Bloody Mary' legend was common when I was a kid in the early 1970s. We typically performed the "ritual" in bathrooms, because the bathrooms of our suburban homes had large mirrors and were easily darkened even during the day since they had no windows. A familiar 'Bloody Mary' story was one about a girl who supposedly ended her incantation with a spiteful "I don't believe in Mary Worth," then tripped over the doorjamb while exiting the bathroom and broke her
hip.)

Mary is said to be a witch who was executed a hundred years ago for plying the black arts, or a woman of more modern times who died in a local car accident in which her face was hideously mutilated.

It's possible these "mirror witch" games have their roots in oldtime divining rituals involving unmarried girls and future husbands. There are a number of variations of these divinations, some involving chanting a rhyme in a darkened room on a special night and then quickly looking in the mirror to catch a glimpse of the bridegroom-to-be.

The concept of mirrors as portals between this world and the realm of spirits shows up in other beliefs, namely those surrounding funerals. It was common practice to cover mirrors in a house where a death had occurred until the body was taken for burial. (Back in the days before funeral homes, corpses were washed by the deceased's relatives, dressed in their funeral finery, and laid out in coffins in the front parlor. Consequently, the dead would be in the house for days.) It was believed if the dear departed caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror, his ghost would remain in the house because the mirror would trap his spirit.

Halloween History Countdown - Day 29

I'm posting early because tonight I'll be attending The Denver Witches' Ball! This is the first time I've been, and I'm pretty excited.

From the BBC Wiki:
Black Cats in Every Culture

"One of the earliest associations of black cats with bad luck perhaps comes from ancient Babylonian and Hebrew mythologies. These myths compare the black cat, coiled in a circle as it dozes on the hearth, to a serpent. The serpent in most cultures was considered a purveyor of evils and misfortune.

The Celts thought black cats were reincarnated beings who were able to divine the future and the Normans believed that if a black cat crossed your path in the moonlight, you would die in an epidemic. During the Middle Ages the Germans believed that if a black cat jumped on the bed of a sick person it meant death was approaching and in Finland, black cats were thought to carry the souls of the dead to the other world."

Halloween History Countdown - Day 28

Another spooky word derivation for this 28th day of the month!

From Weird! The Complete Book of Halloween Words by Peter R. Limburg

"Gruesome comes from the Scottish verb, grue, that meant 'to feel horror' or 'to shudder'. Grue was often spelled grow, for people could not agree on how it should be spelled.

At some point during the Middle Ages, the ending some was tacked on to make an adjective. But gruesome remained a provincial word until Sir Walter Scott used it in his novel Old Mortality in 1816. He spelled it grewsome. The modern spelling did not take hold until after 1850."