Happy Halloween!
Every autumn we look forward to all the Halloween festivities – pumpkin patch, jack-o-lanterns, and costume parties. It’s a fun holiday for kiddos and adults alike!
Last Halloween, Lady Yeya and Baby L’s nanny organised a Toddler’s Halloween Party for their little friends at our house. As a talented baker, our nanny also made a four-layer cake decorated with all kinds of Halloween candy. It was truly a spooktacular cake!
This year, due to the Covid restrictions, we couldn’t organise a social gathering. However, we still wanted to do something Halloween-related that Lady Yeya would enjoy. You see, as kids growing up in sunny California, Kenz and I loved Halloween, not only for the candy but a week-long of fun activities.
This spooky holiday takes its origin from the Celtic pagan tradition called Samhain. It is a festival to ward off evil spirits by dressing in costumes and making bonfires. Halloween later evolved into a secular commercial holiday in the U.S. It is also the eve of All Saint’s Day or All Hallows’ Day which honours all the saints, known and unknown in Christianity.
Halloween in London
In America, Halloween is a full spectacle where houses are decorated with all things spooky including the ubiquitous jack-o-lanterns. At dusk on Halloween evening, kids and tweens gathered together for some classic trick-or-treating, filling our Halloween bags with a year’s worth of candy. Lady Yeya may be British-born but Kenz and I want her to experience an “American-style” Halloween. So this year, we made a trip to the pumpkin patch at Stanhill Farm.
Situated in Kent about 30 minutes from our home is a 150-acre farm called Stanhill Farm. We met up with our friends and her toddler plus pumpkin “bump” (aka a little sibling) for this outing. As it is a working farm, it’s very much just a large pumpkin patch than a festival. With all the rain recently, the grounds were fairly muddy as we wander around the pumpkin patch, followed by hot chocolate and brownies. Overall a fun day out with good friends.
We also planned on an atmospheric walk through Nunhead Cemetery, one of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries in London. It’s not as popular Highgate Cemetery where some very famous people were buried including author Douglas Adams and philosopher Karl Marx. Unfortunately, the rain derailed our plans today, so we took a walk through our local cemetery instead. Later as the sunset, we welcomed the few kids (and their parents) who braved the cold under the rare blue moon for some treats.
Stay safe and be well everyone!
