Hallowe'en/Samhain 2020

Last Saturday (31st October) it was Samhain/Hallowe'en. I celebrated with a pumpkin and by making some food and drink. I made my usual Demon's Blood drink and some potato salad, and also baked some gingerbread skeletons. 

Demon's Blood is ginger beer mixed with apple juice and orange juice, and dyed green. The recipe is from Kate West's book The Real Witches' Kitchen. And the potato salad is based on a recipe from The Kitchen Witch book by Soraya. I planned to use spring onion and chives, but couldn't get any chives.

Here's a picture of the pumpkin: 

 

Sorry it's blurry, I found it hard to get a decent picture on my phone with the flash off! 

Here is a picture of my decorations, a sort of Hallowe'en altar:

The decorations are knitted (the ghosts are my mum's, and I knitted the pumpkin and Hallowe'en hearts). The pumpkin lights are new, I got them from Waitrose. I couldn't get orange and green candles this year, so I just lit a white one. I also had a Pumpkin Spice Yankee candle.

As I said in the More Samhain/Hallowee'en Inspiration post, I went back to my usual recipe for gingerbread skeletons after trying a different one last year. They came out better. Here's a pic:

I have new gingerbread cutters now (first used them for Lammas), so I did the gingerbread people in varying sizes. I made a couple of half moons and some round ones as well.

I had planned to go up to my favourite nature reserve the next day, but the weather wasn't that great so I went on the day after (Monday 2nd Nov). There was a bit of a sunset and I took a couple of photos:

Mill Hill, Shoreham-by-sea.

So now we're into November, and have one more sabbat to go in the calendar year. This year has been strange and in some ways it has felt really long, but in other ways it feels weird that it's November already, lol. The next sabbat will be Yule/the Winter Solstice and I will do a celebration post nearer the time. I'm planning to do my September/October update next week.

Hope you had a good Samhain/Hallowe'en! (Or Beltane). :)