Challenge Entry
This year will be our first year celebrating Halloween as the witch’s new year. I’m excited! Though I’ve been weaving in pagan traditions and folklore for a few years.
I love this time of year. Before embracing a pagan path, I’ve always loved Halloween. Even though both of my kids are basically grown, my daughter and I still love it and celebrate it. We always watch Disney’s ‘Skeleton Dance’ on the first of October (something I grew up with), and we try to take time to enjoy the fog, falling leaves, cold, and snow once it falls. We love embracing the spooky, witchy feeling of the season, but also death as part of the cycle.
As part of our yearly tradition, she’ll be carving a pumpkin as well. 
Here’s a link to Skeleton Dance, if you’ve never heard of it. It’s almost 100 years old.
We set out more decorations outside this year, including two ghosts in one of our trees, and more skeletons for our graveyard.
I also made patchwork witchy skirts for my daughter and I. We included some magical fabric that has witchy tools and cats, as well as glow in the dark skulls!
Things we plan on doing for Halloween / Samhain:
I hope to do a ritual fire again soon. My daughter and I love fire gazing and spending time outside, especially late at night. A month ago, I purchased our first small fire pit with clean burning wood pellets. We’ve always wanted our own fire.
A photo of our little portable fire pit
I plan on doing a small death ritual on Halloween during the day with my daughter, based on a recent weekly coven ritual here. I’ll be using this tarot card:
Death card from Mystical Cats Tarot
I hope to also bake cookies with her on Halloween. It’s a recipe I found online, but I’m calling it ‘moon cookies’ from here on out, as we will dip them in powdered sugar (half / all / none) based on the moon cycle. We mostly honor the new / dark, half, and full moons. This Halloween will be a perfect half moon, so we’ll be dipping the dough balls half in powdered sugar.
Fun fact: I was born on a perfect half moon, so the half moon has always been a big deal to me!
Here’s the recipe:
Most importantly, we’ll be remembering our ancestors, specifically my father.
He was incredibly close with my kids while they were little, and was a huge influence throughout my life. I’ve felt him close to us through the years after he passed. His presence has been fading, but on Halloween night over the past few years, I feel him strongly. I bought a candle that made me think of him (I use the candle each year), and we buy his favorite candy and sit it out all night while we have corn bread, chili, and watch Dracula (Bell Lugosi’s, of course!). We’ve had that dinner tradition based on doing trunk or treating with my father when the kids were little. I feel like he’s still there with us each year when we set out the candle and candy for him.
(I might try to also do salted caramels for my brother. I feel he’s fully moved on, but I miss him too.)
Here’s the candle and my dad’s favorite candy, along with a cat statue I repainted like a skeleton. This was a photo from the first year we set things out for my father.
Happy coming Halloween / Samhain to everyone who is celebrating it!
Edited for missing photos and formatting.