a week of Samhain festivities: day 1

So I decided to make a big deal of Samhain this year. You know, as opposed to Halloween, which has always been a big deal. This year Child's getting involved, and I'm taking the opportunity to finally teach Child some of my beliefs. This will be a week(ish)-long celebration. I'm excited.

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I've noticed I'm getting better at planning activities for Child since I started homeschooling. Come to think of it... my whole life is getting more organized. All because the homeschooling schedule demands it. 

Huh. Didn't see that coming.

Day 1: Friday 26 October

Samhain - Summer's End, in the language of our (Child's and my) Scottish ancestors. We can feel it here in the high desert. Summer is ending; it gets cool every night, now, and the days are short and the lengthening nights are often windy.

We homeschool, so instead of the regularly scheduled history lesson (the beginning of the Age of Exploration, if you're curious), Child will be learning about the history of Samhain. I've hopped across the internet and scoured my own books, and come up with a plain-language but thorough enough story of the holiday. I'll share it in a separate post.

This evening, Child and I will participate in a haunted house event at my college to kick off the season. On our way home, we'll stop at the grocery store and "harvest" a large hunk of beef to roast, some potatoes, apples, and sweet potatoes (yay pie!). We'll pick up some cider and mead, and pumpkins too. I'm using the shopping trip to explain the harvest that our ancestors would have done, and that I participated in as a young'un growing up on a cattle farm.

I'm cutting the festivities there, for today. Child's attention span is easily overloaded.

If Child's interest is still engaged when we get home, we might talk some about the predators our ancestors would have seen this time of year - notably, wolves - because of the relative scarcity of prey, and the not-quite-too-cold-yet conditions that would keep them moving about, rather than hiding in dens. And bears, which would be preparing for hibernation.

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The fall leaves clip art used above came from this website: http://www.kidsturncentral.com/holidays/clipart/fallclipart.htm