lmemsm

Want to wish everyone a happy Halloween and hope you have a safe holiday season.

I celebrate Halloween every year by decorating virtually using HTML and offering a tour of my online Halloween themed web pages. I update the Other Haunting Links web page each year and try to make sure the links point to interesting resources. I've listened to a personal Halloween playlist of songs I own on CDs for over a decade and, this year, I'm finally able to share my personal favorites with everyone else with just a link. You can also find articles I've written with a Halloween theme and links to other Halloween related subject matter.

Hope you enjoy the Halloween Holiday Tour:
http://www.distasis.com/distasis/
Catch it before it mysteriously disappears again.

Creating your own virtual haunted houses is one fun and safe way to celebrate Halloween. You can check out my Halloween Brainstorms from last year to find some great resources for creating your own virtual Halloween adventures and escape rooms:
https://lmemsm.dreamwidth.org/17224.html
There are other ideas for celebrating Halloween safely as well.

This year, I've been looking into celebrating by baking and/or making healthy treats. Here are some ideas:
https://lmemsm.dreamwidth.org/20855.html

Saw some interesting healthy Halloween treat recipes on YouTube and an interesting musical Halloween video to relax to that includes a fireplace, a colored fire and cat statues:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh13eaXsxCQ

Guess the Halloween tours are catching on. NASA shared a spooky tour of their own:
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/alien-worlds/galaxy-of-horrors/
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/alien-worlds/universe-of-monsters/

I'll be posting about Halloween to the HSP Dimension ( https://funhsps.forumotion.com/ ). So, if you want to share some of your own Halloween ideas, you can let me know through those mediums. It can be very difficult to find resources for Halloween that appeal to HSPs or that are kid-safe but still appeal to all ages, so if you know any, I hope you'll share them.

Have a happy, safe and healthy Halloween. Hope you enjoy it.

We're celebrating ColorWeeks at work so I thought it would be fun to come up with some colorful ideas for Halloween treats. ColorWeeks is a celebration of foods that represent the rainbow of colors and a variety of health benefits from ingredients that provide those colors.

Red

Try some blood red fruit juice concoctions. Add cherry or cranberry juice to other juices to give it a red tone. You can make a homemade lemonade with fresh lemon juice, honey and a little cranberry, raspberry or cherry juice.

Make a homemade jam, fruit butter, sauce or compote with your favorite red berries such as raspberry, cranberry or cherry. There's a nice Vitamix recipe for making homemade cranberry juice and sauce with one batch of cranberries. Drizzle red fruit on foods or place in pie for a bloody good treat.

Bobbing for apples is a traditional fall game. Modern versions of the game tie an apple to a string and let you try to catch a sweet treat in your mouth without use of your hands. Add an apple a day to keep the doctor away.

Try some tomato to add a blood red color to your meal.

Use dried cranberries and other dried fruits to make a fun trail mix snack.

Radishes are red, at least some of them are. How about carving a mini jack-o'-lantern with this root vegetable?

Shape a red pepper to look like a pumpkin or carve a face in it. Remove seeds and make stuffed peppers. Stuff with rice, orzo, quinoa or other choices. You can include tomato sauce for a bloody addition.

Orange

Orange is the color of pumpkin. Make a homemade pumpkin pie. Add pumpkin puree to various baked goods like brownie recipes.

Orange is also the color of oranges. You can create and decorate a mini pumpkin made from a real orange. Decorate the peel with eyes, nose and mouth to create the face of the pumpkin. Another option, remove the peel from the orange keeping it as intact as possible. Cut out features for eyes, nose and mouth. Eat the inside of the orange and fill the peel with other treats.

How about trying a blood orange for Halloween?

Peel a mandarin orange. Top with celery or other green vegetable for a stem and you have a mini pumpkin.

Make candied orange peels by saving organic orange peels and boiling in honey. It's delicious by itself, with other snacks or covered in chocolate.

Shape an orange pepper to look like a pumpkin or carve a face in it. Remove seeds and make stuffed peppers. Stuff with rice, quinoa or other choices.

Cut round, flat sweet potato slices. Cut out features for eyes, nose and mouth to resemble a pumpkin. Add some olive oil and bake at 400 degrees on a baking sheet. You'll have baked sweet potato fries that look like little pumpkins.

Cut carrots in coin like rounds to look like pumpkins. First, cut length-wise to take out two small long triangles. These will form the shape of the stem later. Cut the other direction similar to small coins. Resulting shape should be similar to a pumpkin.

Carrots come in multiple colors not just orange. Create a multicolored carrot salad or display using carrots in the shades of candy corn.

Combine frozen pineapple slices and some frozen apricot. Blend in high-powered blender to make orange ices.

Add some edible orange or yellow nasturtium flowers to perk up a salad and provide a Halloween hue.

If you can find mamey sapote pulp in your local grocery store, combine it with other frozen fruits in a high-powered blender for a delicious ices treat.

Yellow

As mentioned under the red suggestions, lemon juice is great for homemade lemonade.

Shape a yellow pepper to look like a pumpkin or carve a face in it. Remove seeds and make stuffed peppers. Stuff with rice, quinoa or other choices.

I like to make a full moon gelatin from apple juice and gelatin. Most circular containers make a suitable mold. You can mix with ice cream for a two layer treat or add a second blood red layer of cranberry or cherry juice.

You can also make a candy corn colored gelatin dessert using apple juice for one layer and a second layer of orange juice mixed with melted vanilla ice cream. The ice cream will separate and make a separate layer. You could use a combination of apple or pineapple and orange juice gelatins topped with whipped cream.

Here's a chance to add orange and yellow to your diet. Make a candy corn style fruit cup. Layer a yellow fruit such as pineapple or gold kiwi and then add an orange fruit such as cantaloupe or orange. Top with yogurt, whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Freeze pineapple juice, orange juice and yogurt for a candy corn colored popsicle treat.

Create a nori roll with white rice and some candy corn colored yellow and orange ingredients such as carrot and yellow pickled daikon radish or some corn off the cob. You can even add avocado and cucumber. You can also add colored pepper slices.

Green

Pumpkin is traditional this time of year, so how about adding some pumpkin seeds to your diet as a snack? You can mix it with other seeds or nuts.

Freeze green grapes or eat them fresh as a snack. They look (and feel) like eyeballs.

Make a slimy looking, but healthy, green shake from a variety of green ingredients such as leaves (spinach, bok choi, lettuce, parsley, etc.) and your favorite milk (cow or goat milk or nut, coconut, soy or oatmeal 'milk') and/or yogurt.

Blue

Blue foods in nature and animals with blue colors in nature are very rare. Try blueberries (or boo-berries) as a treat for Halloween. They're wonderful in pie or tarts or as an oozing jam or runny compote.

Purple

Purple grapes are a wonderful snack for Halloween. They're used in spooky foods as a substitute for eyeballs. You can freeze grapes to make a fun snack. You can also dip frozen grapes in chocolate.

Purple cauliflower is another fun and unusual option.

Raisins make a healthy snack for Halloween too.

White

Garlic, it's so healthy it scares vampires away and also helps scare away other ailments. Garlic has antibiotic properties. If the flavor is too strong for you, try some of its relatives, onions, shallots and leeks. Chives, another allium, can produce beautiful white edible flowers.

Cauliflower might just resemble an exposed brain especially if it's presented properly.

Turnips - Jack-o'-lanterns were originally carved in root vegetables like turnips especially in Europe before becoming a tradition in America using pumpkins. Some turnips have a skin with a purple hue which can add some purple to your diet too.

A banana can make a stand-in for a ghost. Just add some chocolate tidbits for eyes.

Egg ghosts can be made from hard-boiled eggs. Remove the egg shell after hard-boiling. Cut out eyes and a mouth so that the yellow yolk can show through.

Cottage cheese or plain yogurt can also be given a ghostly shape. Add a fruit like grapes or add some chocolate tidbits for eyes. It doesn't have to be two eyes either. You can add multiple eyes to your creature as a delicious and flavorful addition.

Homemade coconut macaroons can be shaped liked ghosts.

Marshmallow ghosts are a spooky treat. It's simple to make homemade marshmallows. All you need is water, honey and gelatin. Check out the recipes at the end of the Halloween Holiday Tour.

Celebrating Halloween all alone? Here are some ideas and brainstorms.

First, I'd like to invite you take the Halloween Holiday Tour. It's only accessible in October.
You can find a link to it here:
http://www.distasis.com/write

If you'd like to create your own Halloween interactive adventures electronically, here are some
of the many Free, Libre and Open Source options out there:
https://playfic.com/
http://twinery.org/
https://www.alanif.se/
http://www.tads.org/index.htm
http://www.trizbort.com/

Some also allow you to create web pages without needing to be a web designer:
http://textadventures.co.uk/squiffy
http://textadventures.co.uk/quest/
http://inform7.com/

This lets you create your own mobile apps:
https://appinventor.mit.edu/

You can also practice programming and create a storyline with these tools:
https://scratch.mit.edu/
http://www.alice.org/get-alice/storytelling-alice/

If you create your own Halloween adventure and it's not too scary, feel free to let me know about it:
http://www.distasis.com/connect.htm
I'd love to hear about any Free, Libre, Open Source, Creative Commons or public domain resources for Halloween. Treat it as a scavenger or treasure hunt and try to find some of your own or help create some new ones and share them with everyone.

The Halloween Holiday Tour has several ideas for celebrating Halloween plus links to activities, so I don't want to repeat that here. What else can I cover? I have seen some interesting web sites that mention favorite music and movies to watch for Halloween, so I'll share some of mine at this time.

I like classical Halloween music such as Night on Bald Mountain. I'm in the process of transcribing it to ABC notation so I can create a midi file of it. I also like Loreena McKennit's music. Some of her songs are based on public domain music or lyrics. I took some of my favorite Halloween themed songs from various music I own and put together my own Halloween playlist. You can find free software to work with music and create your own music CDs as part of this list on Open Source software:
http://www.distasis.com/cpp/osrclist.htm

As far as Halloween TV shows and videos, some of my favorites suitable for all ages are:
Curious George: A Halloween Boo Fest
Charlie Chan: Meeting at Midnight
Wishbone: The Legend of Creepy Collars
Legion of Superheroes season 1 episode 4 Fear Factory
Voyagers! episode 4
Spooky House
Thunder and the House of Magic
Check your local libraries for them.
You can find the Charlie Chan video online at archive.org: https://archive.org/details/CharlieChanBlackMagicMeetingAtMidnight
If you run across others, suitable for any age, feel free to let me know. I may add them to the list.

I'll definitely be doing some baking this Halloween. What's Halloween without some treats to go with the tricks? Haven't decided what's on my menu yet, but there will definitely be some homemade baked goods. I also like magic tricks on Halloween. You can check out some public domain magic books for ideas: https://lmemsm.dreamwidth.org/13112.html

Here is a 1917 recipe book that includes some ideas for celebrating Hallowe'en:
https://books.google.com/books?id=TeEqAAAAYAAJ
Here is a 1911 magazine that gives some menu ideas including a recipe for soul cakes on page 28 of the October 26th issue:
https://books.google.com/books?id=Zi4xAQAAMAAJ

In previous years, one of our local parks held a wonderful annual Halloween event. Will miss it this year. They showcased some of their animals. Some of their holidays decorations were really clever. You can try these at home. They took tennis balls and decorated them with pumpkin faces. They even sprayed some orange. They cut out the back of old gallon milk containers and put tea lights in them. They used markers to decorate faces on them. They provided a nice glow toward evening.

Our Wellness Department at work mentioned virtual staycations and here was one of the links they shared:
https://www.travelandleisure.com/trip-ideas/disney-vacations/virtual-disney-park-rides-worldwide
The Mystic Manor video looked like a lot of fun and very appropriate for Halloween.

Halloween is when the walls between the worlds grow thin and spirits of the Underworld walk the earth. For some cultures, Halloween is a wonderful time to remember ancestors and family no longer with us. What ways do you remember family members at this time?

Haven't tried an escape room yet. However, I did read that one of the libraries shared a digital escape room that might be fun for Halloween:
https://ptlibrary.org/hogwarts-digital-escape-room/

Halloween Comic Fest celebrates comic books once a year. This year they're offering older comic books in electronic format in their Throwback Thursday articles:
https://www.halloweencomicfest.com/EventNews
You can also check if there are any comic book stores participating in Halloween Comic Fest virtually this year.

Have some of your own kid-friendly Halloween rituals to continue celebrating at home this year? Please share them and help brainstorm some positive and safe ways to enjoy the holiday.

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