This year, my main concern with Samhain was to actually hold a cohesive celebration and to not spend all day in the kitchen as I always tend to do with any festivity. I love to cook but it’s draining to do it all day long.

Halloween is my favourite holiday because it’s this beautiful day when my culture accepts–and expects–spookiness and witchcraft. It is the day that celebrates how I live my life 365 days of the year. And, regardless of what it may look like, I think it’s really nice to fit in.

But the past 6 or 7 Octobers have been busy. Either we’ve been moving to a new country (3 Octobers in a row if you can believe it!), I’m traveling, I’m sick, or I get so excited about my favourite day of the year that in the overwhelm of all the things I want to do, I end up disappointed by the 12% I actually manage to fulfil.

This year, I lowered my expectations of myself and stuck with some big themes.

My menu was 4 dishes long, which was one too many I decided. Thank goodness I had so much help this year, though. We made our own forest and ghost shaped tortilla chips and some of the greatest pomegranate guacamole, beet lemonade, dried some pepitas, and baked soul cakes.

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We finally got to pumpkin carving, and it’s the first time I freehanded a carving. I’ve been trying to do more freehand art lately to free myself of perfectionism.

The big event of the night was a lovely conversation with some deceased family. My mother had a lovely talk with her first husband and we even got some sweet ghostly purrs from my beloved Sydney who died in 2014. I think it is she that Veles the living kitty plays with in the night.

To finish off the festivities, I did tarot for everyone. My reading, as usual, was not very positive. My creativity can only lead to success with the help of a financially keen young man.

Wrapping up the night, Seva and I started watching “Over the Garden Wall.” I am shocked I haven’t watched that before, it is positively adorable.

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