Blog entry

A Spooky Halloween / Samhain! - Wonderful Handmade Wednesday on Indiemade

Halloween will soon be here, a time for pumpkin carvings, dressing in costumes, trick or treating and parties  Halloween has been around for over 200 years - how did it evolve?  To answer those questions (and refresh my memory), I decided to share a short history of Halloween, dealing more with its ancient traditions.

Halloween dates back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts lived about 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France and celebrated their new year on November 1.  This day marked the end of summer and the harvest.  It also marked the beginning of the dark, cold winter, the time of year that was most associated with death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, Samhain was celebrated when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.

Caribbean Blue - Wonderful Handmade Wednesday on Indiemade

Usually when I’m working on a blog post or listing an item in my Indiemade shop, my Pandora station is palying on my computer.  My stream has a great blend (at least to me) of classic rock, some more modern rock, some folk music and a big dose of Celtic inspired music - that's the Scots-Irish coming out in me.  Yesterday, as I was finishing up another blog, the song “Caribbean Blue” by Eithne Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin (better known as Enya) came on.  Even though Enya sings many Celtic folk songs, some in Gaelic, with her usually heavily synthesized backdrops and multiple layers of her own voice, she is more of a New Age musician, in my humble opinion.  "Caribbean Blue" was a mega-hit for her, and rightly so.  I find her music very relaxing and always pause and enjoy the minutes when songs of hers show up in the Pandora rotation.  Sometimes I'll even plug in one of her CDs and totally bliss out.  To see the amazingly beautiful video of the song click here: CARIBBEAN BLUE 

Monday Twitter Tree - Handmade and Vintage - October 9, 2017

Please share you links and tweets on the host blog:  CHRISTIE COTTAGE

Monday Twitter Tree - Handmade and Vintage - September 25, 2017

Please share your tweets and links on the host blog:  CHRISTIE COTTAGE