• Home
  • Family
    • Pregnancy
    • Breastfeeding
    • Baby
    • Toddler
    • Preschooler
    • Big Kid
    • Teen World
    • Pets
    • Education & Learning
      • Toys
  • Finance
    • Success & Fulfillment
    • Money Mondays
    • Law and Taxation
    • Doing Business in the Philippines
  • Health
    • Beauty & Style
    • Healthy Food
    • Fabulous Fridays
  • Life
    • Love & Relationships
    • Mind & Spirit
    • Beautiful Home
    • My Hometown-Baguio City
    • Travels
  • Privacy Policy
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact Me!
    • About Me
    • Advertise
    • Facebook
    • Google+
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter

Mommy Unwired

FREE!HAPPY KIDS FOR LIFE eBOOK!

Give your child confidence & a strong sense of self-esteem!Here is your Special HAPPY KIDS FOR LIFE eBook!

Home » Uncategorized » Late Halloween Post

Late Halloween Post

in Uncategorized on 11/07/12

Click To Download This Post As PDF
Share
Tweet
Pin

I just want to let you know that all opinions are my own and I may earn from qualifying purchases. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. Enjoy and feel free to share with your friends!

Way, way back when we were kids, Halloween in the Philippines was celebrated differently, and in a big way.  Sure, we went around in scary costumes on the 31st of October.  And the costumes were made by us, mind you.  We only had little shops in our city which sell yards and yards of black and white cloth, fake cobwebs, plus plenty of Halloween accessories.  The big mall which intends to kill pine trees was practically non-existent back then.  Actually, that place where that mall is now used to be the site of Pines Hotel, which burned in the early 1980’s, during a big US/Filipino War Veterans Convention.  A lot of the elderly war veterans and their wives died, practically fried alive, there.  It has since been (before SM Baguio was built, that is) a favorite ghost haunting spot for locals and tourists, where balls of fire have been rumored to shoot all over the place in the dead of night.  But, I digress (as always).

So, anyway, we improvise our Halloween costumes by using white bed sheets, our mom’s red lipstick for the blood, plus her black eyeliner, of course, for those scary black eyebags.  My older brother would put on my dad’s trench coat and  put it way above his head, so he would look headless.  That never fails to make my younger cousin, Josephine, pee in fear.

But the real Halloween wonder for us was on November 1 and 2, which are officially Holy Days in this predominantly Catholic country.  This means no school for all of us who go to Catholic Schools.  On November 1, we prepare ham and egg sandwiches, plus boxes of juice to bring to the cemetery.  Yup, it is practically a big party place out there!  We trek to the cemetery on foot, offer flowers and candles to our dead relatives’ grave stones, and practically have a blast, staying there till the late afternoon.

I am so not kidding.  It is like one big reunion party because we meet relatives we haven’t seen for long (for a year, anyway, because the last time we saw them was the previous year on this same date). We stay there till the late afternoon, eating and horsing around,and if one cousin brought his boombox, it is “parteey!” (Authorities were not strict then.).  Some families actually bring pancit and other typical Filipino food and eat right there.

We don’t do this anymore.  I used to regal my children with stories of our graveyard escapades (plus a few ghost stories when we were there cleaning one relative’s graveyards), but they never can get it why we had so much fun back then.  I think life was much simpler then, and we found beauty in its simplicity.  Children today are wired and connected and has turned blase on anything that is simple.

And they insist on having their own Halloween costumes, too.

Here’s Adrian in a vampire and monster costume, plus his dream “Luke Skywalker” costume which never happened, mainly because I had no time to make it and stores don’t have the costume either…

plus old Halloween pictures of my two girls, with cousins and friends…

 P.S.  And there goes NaBloPoMo Day 7. (23 days more to go and I am already having a gigantic headache hehe)

Related

Click To Download This Post As PDF
« Warning: Extremely Mushy Tele-Serye Moment
Is Your TV Watching You? »

Comments

  1. sanna says

    November 8, 2012 at 3:38 am

    I spent my nov.1's exactly the way your family did. Its like a picnic and party in the cemetery.I miss those days.

    • venessapaula1@gmail.com says

      November 8, 2012 at 1:43 pm

      Back when we were in grade school, I don't think I even know Halloween hehe.

  2. Lady Anne Abit says

    November 8, 2012 at 10:08 am

    Cute Halloween costumes! Hope your kid will get his Luke Skywalker costume next year! =)

    • venessapaula1@gmail.com says

      November 8, 2012 at 1:44 pm

      I know. He likes to be a Jedi. haha

  3. Farida says

    November 8, 2012 at 10:18 am

    Life then was so much simpler. I remembered roaming around the cemetery too with my cousins to collect melted wax. It was also sort of a picnic adventure for us coz my grandmother would bring along mats and food and eating what we brought while reminiscing our dead relatives.

    • venessapaula1@gmail.com says

      November 8, 2012 at 1:45 pm

      Yup, we did that too, collecting melted wax and then shouting Tabi Tabi po whenever we step on gravestones!

  4. Lexi Fernando says

    November 8, 2012 at 11:55 am

    I remember life back then, too. And when my cousins and I reminisce and we're heard by my nephews, they laugh at us and say "Ang babaw naman po ng kaligayahan nyo." Hahaha.

    You're right, the young ones would never get why it's more fun during our days. Hindi sila maka-relate. 😛

    • venessapaula1@gmail.com says

      November 8, 2012 at 1:46 pm

      Yup, totally. Technology has ironically kept them out of touch

  5. Prettymom says

    November 8, 2012 at 11:56 am

    Am 33 and honestly I haven't tried wearing scary costume on Halloween..visiting from ComEx Nov 6 for my second blog..:)www.singlemomreviews.com

  6. venessapaula1@gmail.com says

    November 8, 2012 at 1:48 pm

    Hi, PrettyMom. I like your blog! We only get to use Halloween costumes back then because there used to be Halloween parties at Camp John Hay.

  7. Thernzkie says

    November 10, 2012 at 7:28 am

    love seeing kids wearing different costumes. They're so cute.

Recent Posts

  • Cancers You Should Know About and How to Protect Yourself
  • Voluntary Assessment and Payment Program (VAPP) of the BIR
  • NOVUHAIR Celebrates 10.10
  • Review: FlexClip Video Maker
  • NOVUHAIR Petite Conversations with Cory Quirino

Popular Posts

  • Trying To Conceive?Try These Healthy Smoothie Recipes For Fertility!
  • Penalties for Late Filing and Payment of Your Income Tax Return in the Philippines
  • BIR responds to complaints on new Official Receipts Regulations
  • {How To File Your BIR Form 1701 Income Tax Return} For Self-Employed Individuals -
  • New Tax Filing & Payment Deadlines in the Philippines

© 2021 MOMMYUNWIRED.COM

This Site is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon. Certain content that appears on this site comes from Amazon Service LLC. This content is provided 'as is' and is subject to change or removal at any time.