2021 Life Logs, Day 304: Happy Halloween
Date: Sunday, October 31, 2021
Weather: Partly Sunny AM, Sunny PM; High Temp 64, Low Temp 51 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Happy Halloween . . . however you do or don’t celebrate Halloween. Evidently Halloween began as the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain. This was a Pagan holiday observing the Feast of the Dead. Later it became the Western Christian feast of All Hallow’s Day and eventually became known as Halloween. In Mexico, it is celebrated as the eve of the Day of the Dead, or Día de los Muertos. This began as a belief that the souls of the dead return to visit their living family members on that day. Thus, all those scary ghosts. Before I ever had any idea that there was any reason for Halloween other than dressing in a costume and going Trick or Treating, I just enjoyed the frivolity of the holiday. Maybe that is because my maternal grandmother was a red-haired Scot through her mother, Rebecca Jane Campbell. My red-haired grandmother married my grandfather whose mother was another Scot, Sarah Catherine McGhee. I have been able to trace Sarah McGhee all the way back to Iain Dubh MacGregor, born in 1360 in Scotland. I don’t know where in Scotland he was born, but he died in 1415 in Stronmeloahan, Scotland. Tracing the McGhee line was fascinating. As I went back in time, the name changed in spelling to McGeehee, then to Mackghee, MackGehee, MacGahye, and then to MacGregor. Wait. Why MacGregor? There is a story of a feud that caused the name change from MacGregor to MacGahye to ‘protect’ the innocent. Long way around to saying Happy Halloween!
I went over to Heather and Jed’s mid-afternoon to see what Halloween mischief might be going on. 
Jonah and Ollie were deep into cleaning out their pumpkins and Heather was sorting out the pumpkin seeds to roast. The boys then started carving. The end results were quite impressive. I took over a shirt that I thought should be put in with their Halloween costumes to be used another year. But Heather decided immediately that she was going to be a ghost tonight and that shirt was going to be her costume . . . along with a white hair wig that I had back at my house. So, I took off to get the wig. Tonight, Heather was ghost, Jonah was Loki (a Marvel character), Ollie was a gorilla, and Jed was the gorilla’s big yellow banana.
Sam was already at a Halloween party at his friend Robert’s. He went as a Hobbit.
Heather, Jed, Jonah, and Ollie were going to an outside party at of one of Jonah’s friends at 5 o’clock. Ollie really wanted to Trick or Treat in his neighborhood since they did not get to last year because of Covid. He just wanted to see what Halloween in the new neighborhood was like. They decided that they would walk down their street when they came home from the party. I’ll have to check in with them tomorrow to see how that went.
I talked with Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco today. Coco explained that they could not find a pumpkin to buy so they were going to try and turn a honeydew melon into a jack-o-lantern this afternoon. I checked just now on Facebook, and indeed they were successful.
There were also photos on Facebook of them dressed in their costumes. They are certainly a creative crew. Ziggy’s costume for tonight was similar to the one he wore to school on Friday, but Coco went from being dressed all in black to a clown-costume.
She who loves Halloween was the only non-participant tonight. Instead of having me stay at Heather and Jed’s to pass out treats while they were at the party, Heather just put out a bowl of eyeballs and candy next to the street with a note telling Trick or Treaters to take one item on the honor system. 
I came home and enjoyed a quiet evening with Shadow. Only one family with young children Trick or Treating in this neighborhood tonight.
