Skip to main content

Halloween 2021

We attended a Halloween party, organized by Schneider Haus National Historic Site along with our friends, in their neighborhood. Entry was based on pre-booking, with timed slots and limited to only those who are fully vaccinated. They decorated the place with haunted forest, cemetery, ghosts, witches and vampirinas. You can find few photographs from the venue, here.

It was held outdoors and due to heavy rain, the place was muddy and slippery. But it didn't stop the kids from enjoying the evening. They put up their best show in spooky costumes and played trick-or-treat. 




Just to give a little background, Halloween is celebrated by many countries on 31st October of every year. It is the time of the year dedicated to remember all those dead. Initially, Halloween was celebrated in Ireland and Scotland. As people started migrating, it was brought to the US in 19th century and to other countries in 20th and 21st centuries.

When it originated, Halloween's rituals were influenced by an ancient festival of Samhain (Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season and beginning of winter) which included animal sacrifices, bonfires, wearing eerie costumes to chase ghosts away. In due course, it evolved into fun filled celebrations - like pumpkin carvings, trick-o-treat, wearing spooky and funny costumes and family get togethers. 

Follow me on my Youtube handle to get notified about my latest articles!!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Anex Monkey Smart Watch

Hello Readers,  Welcome back. While browsing through a weekly flyer by Canadian Tire, my eyes got hold of a smart watch, primarily for its name - Monkey Smart Watch. It's original price was $89.99. On account of Father's Day, the price was slashed 70% and offered for just $24.99 (from June 9th to June 16th).  As it was listed on Canadian Tire website, I thought the product should be genuine and googled to know more about the product. But there weren't sufficient reviews online. So I decided to try it myself and booked it online. This smart watch was launched in the last quarter of 2021 as Anex Monkey Smart Watch. Last year, it had been sold for just $19.99 as part of Black Friday deal. Even after 5 days of waiting, Canadian Tire didn't process my order. On the other hand, the stock was vanishing real quick and only 80 watches were available in our near by store. When checked with their customer service executive, I was told to cancel my online order or wait until they p...

Keep Rutabaga Fresh! Storage Tips & 2 Indian Recipes You'll Love

Stepping beyond our usual choices in kitchen can open up a world of exciting flavors and nutrients. All it takes is to try a new vegetable or a cooking style to add novelty to our daily meals. Rutabaga, a vegetable I haven't explored before turned out to be a delightful discovery. If you haven't read my previous article on rutabaga, be sure to check it out here . It gives you a wholistic look at this underrated super vegetable along with a lip smacking Indian-style Rutabaga fry recipe you won't want to miss.  Apart from the fry, I prepared a flavorful Andhra-style karam pulusu and a comforting Tamil-style kootu using rutabaga. Surprisingly, both dishes turned out even more delicious than the fry! If I had to rank all the three recipes, the rutabaga pulusu would easily take the top spot—it was simply irresistible! How to store rutabaga for weeks? Rutabagas come in all sizes, but the smaller ones can be more bitter and the bigger ones could be woody and tough to cut. So go fo...

Brantford Twin Valley Zoo, Ontario

We are left with just few more weeks of summer and couple more beautiful places to explore, before we bid good bye to the season this year. Twin Valley Zoo at Brantford (Ontario, Canada) is one such place which was on our bucket list for this summer. At Canada, we cannot spot any other animal in our neighbourhood beyond pet dogs, cats and the ever active squirrels that freely roam wherever their heart takes them. If we are lucky, we may also get a chance to find few horses in their stables when we pass through the country side.  While I was in the US, I visited a pet zoo in our locality, which housed a cow, sheep, goat, hen, rooster, few chicken, duck and a goose, specifically to introduce them to kids; which was quite amusing. A person like me who has grown up seeing domestic animals and birds like cows, buffalos, sheep, goat, hens, ducks etc. in the neighbourhood (in India), I found this particularly odd. Of course, today, we don't get to see these beings in the city si...

12 Months, 12 Books: My 2024 Reading Journey

In 2024, I made a conscious decision to read regularly. Instead of treating reading as a past time activity, I adopted it into my daily routine - aiming to read 10 pages each day. There were days where I couldn't read due to various reasons - sickness, time constraints, fatigue or other commitments. However, I managed to meet the target of 10 pages a day (on an average), over the year. This approach helped me overcome the reading slump and voila I could finish one book each month, totaling 12 books in 2024. In this post I would like to share all the titles I read last year. The Art of Happiness: My quest to learn more about Buddhism led me to this book by His Holiness Dalai lama in collaboration with Howard C Cutler. The content of this book is deep and highly relevant to everybody's life irrespective of one's region, religion and culture. The authors put forth "How to be happy" in very simple terms, while implicitly explaining the essence of Buddhism and Buddhist...

Make non-greasy fried rice at home

There was a time, whether it was a birthday party or a treat or just returning from shopping or lazy to cook at home or dining out or catching up with a friend, we used to order fried rice/ noodles. It was the beginning of the fast food era and fried rice was the most sought out - veg fried rice, paneer fried rice egg fried rice, chicken fried rice, schezwan fried rice and the list goes on. Somehow I wasn't a fan of fried rice nor the noodles made at the eateries, though I love watching the preparation - tossing the veggies, rice/ noodles together. Yeah you got me. I admit I was and am still a fuddy duddy. Though I accept greasy food tastes the best, I am scared of them because of their ill effects to health, especially the reheated oil, MSG (ajinomoto) used in its preparation. Fried rice was originally a chinese dish, which is believed to be prepared to use the left overs - rice, vegetables and meat. But it created quite a stir in Asian countries and is still topping the fast food...