Halloween is a time for crazy costumes, ghost stories, sugar-buzzed kids and all things that go bump in the night.

While the average American is expected to spend over $70 on Halloween this year, you don’t have to break the bank to have a spooktacularly fun holiday. Here are a few tips to help you create a festive Halloween without sending a chill down your spine.

Quick and easy costumes
While purchasing a costume may be the easiest solution, it can be expensive. Instead, consider making a one-of-a kind costume. All it takes is a little creativity and items likely found around your home.

With a few supplies, a little prep-time and some imagination, paint and scissors can transform a simple box into a robot, a racecar or a kissing-booth. Or, scan your closet for inspiration; a fortune teller, Greek goddess or private detective costume may be lurking amongst the treasures and accessories in your closet.

For hair-raising fun, the folks at Jack Link’s Beef Jerky have made it easy for fans of their iconic “Messin’ With Sasquatch” commercials to create a costume of the elusive Sasquatch. Check out JackLinks.com to download a free, printable Sasquatch mask, iron-on T-shirt transfer, and other fun tips to make an inexpensive, yet ferociously fun Halloween costume this year.

Don’t be tricked by your treats
Between the candy corn, candied apples and popcorn balls, finding a healthier Halloween treat can be a spooky experience for parents. Don’t be tricked; a “fun” sized mini chocolate bar can pack 60 to 80 calories and it’s loaded with sugar.

To avoid a holiday candy coma, choose non-sugary, protein-rich snacks such as roasted pumpkin seeds, low-calorie beef or turkey jerky or fun-to-eat string cheese. In fact, after carving your Halloween pumpkin, roasting the pumpkin seeds is a fun activity to share with your family.

The great pumpkin
Nothing conjures up memories of Halloweens past like carving jack o’ lanterns. This year, test your pumpkin carving skills with a family friendly “carve-off” competition. Choose prizes that will engage the whole family such as a “winner’s choice” family movie night or movie passes to a local theater.

“Everyone likes pumpkins, and carving jack o’ lanterns is a great way to bring people together,” says children’s book author and avid pumpkin and woodblock carver Betsy Bowen. “Youngsters, oldsters and in-betweens can all be creative with a pumpkin.”

If you’re a pumpkin-carving novice, it’s easy to get started. Select a nicely shaped, firm pumpkin and cover your work surface with newspaper. Gather all of the necessary carving tools, such as spoons, toothpicks for marking your pattern and a small carving knife or saw. Get creative and sketch out a unique design, or use a stencil or pattern as your guide. You can download a variety of free patterns online, suitable for all skill levels, including a Sasquatch stencil at JackLinks.com. If you’re not comfortable carving your pumpkin, try painting it instead.

After carving, light each pumpkin by placing a candle, battery-operated tea-light, or glow stick, inside. There is a certain magic in the air when pumpkins are aglow.

For more information on the Jack Link’s Beef Jerky Sasquatch o’ Lantern or Sasquatch costume, visit JackLinks.com/Growloween. For more information on Betsy Bowen, visit Woodcut.com.

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Kids love carving Hallowe’en pumpkins, but the clean-up can be a monster mess. Try these simple tips to keep the focus on the fun.

1. Great artists plan and sketch their paintings before they start work; encourage kids to do the same. Get out the crayons and markers and let them draw the pumpkin they want to carve. Let the kids share their creations with neighbours when trick or treating.

2. Find or create a clean, clear surface to start. Counters work well and will allow for plenty of room to move around the pumpkin as you work on it. This is preferable to putting down newsprint, which can leave ink on surfaces and clothes.

3. Put aprons on the kids to protect their clothes from the pumpkin mess.

4. Minimize the mess by scooping pumpkin seeds and flesh into a bowl that can easily be emptied into the composter or garbage can. To scrape out the pumpkin, save your spoons and use an ice cream scoop – they’re also easier for little hands to wield.

5. Once you’ve scooped out and carved the jack o’lantern, wipe down the surface with Bounty paper towels – they have the strength, absorbency, and cloth-like durability that you are looking for.

Additional Hallowe’en craft ideas can be found online at www.bountytowels.com.

www.newscanada.com

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Halloween Day

Halloween is an annual holiday celebrated on October 31st.

Origins of Halloween

Today’s Halloween, like many holidays, has both pagan and Christian roots being formed from both the Christian All Saints’ Day and the Celtic celebration Samhain.  The former root, All Saints’ Day, is also referred to as “Solemnity of All Saints,” “All Hallows,” and “Hallowmas.”  In the Catholic tradition, All Saints’ Day is the day before All Souls’ Day which commemorates the faithful dead who have not yet reached heaven.  Samhain literally means “Summer’s End” and is a pagan holiday marking the end of the harvest season; this holiday has many of the aspects of a day of the dead which explains where modern-day Halloween traditions originated.

The Name

The term “Halloween” came from the phrase “All Hallow Evening” which was shortened to “Hallowe’en.”

The History of the Jack-O’-Lantern

Ancient Celts carved turnips and rutabagas to resemble a head in order to frighten off evil spirits.  The name “Jack-O’-Lantern” is believed to come from of folktale of a drunken farmer named Stingy Jack.  According to the tale, Stingy Jack tricked the devil into climbing a tree, and then Stingy Jack trapped the devil by carving a cross into the tree trunk so the devil could not get down.  In return, the devil cursed Stingy Jack to roam the Earth at night using the only light he had – a lit, carved turnip.  Americans adopted the tradition of carving and lighting a vegetable, but opted for the pumpkin since it was more plentiful in the Americas and easier to carve.

More Halloween Facts & History

Learn more about the origins of Halloween by checking out The Real Story of Halloween at History.com.

The American Folklore Center offers a fantastically frightening article The Fantasy and Folklore of All Hallows.

The Washington Post published a great article that also covers Halloween’s origins in What’s Behind Halloween.

Learn more about the Christian roots of Halloween, All Saints’ Day, at the Catholic Encyclopedia.

Visit Chalice Centre for more information on one of Halloween’s pagan roots, Samhain.

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Pumpkin Town in Broken Arrow, OK

What better way to celebrate Halloween than to go and pick out a perfect pumpkin to carve, decorate, or use in some yummy autumn recipe? Going to a local pumpkin patch is not only a great way to find fresh pumpkins, but it can be a lot of fun for the whole family.

I live in a suburb of Tulsa, Oklahoma and my family’s favorite fall spot is Pumpkin Town – they have a huge variety of pumpkins to choose from as well as tractor & pony rides and a giant slide for the kids.

We recently posted pictures from our latest visit along with our favorite pumpkin recipes over at Tasty Tulsa in “It’s the Great Pumpkin Post” if you want to check it all out!

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Top 10 Halloween Stuff on the Web for 2009

Haunted Gingerbread House at Savvy Halloween

1. Make your own Halloween gingerbread house! Savvy Halloween shows you how to make a Halloween Haunted Gingerbread House, gives a recipe for the gingerbread and icing, and even provides a pattern for users to print off and use.

2. Halloween recipes galore!  Disney’s Family Fun has enough recipes to keep you and your family busy for all of autumn!  Most are easy, fun, and best of all, they come with pictures so you can get a good visual of the treats.

3. Who doesn’t love checking out pets in costumes?  Well the Baltimore Sun has a ton of user-submitted dressed up pets all for the looking.

4. Sometimes commercials can be just as entertaining if not more than the shows themselves, and Smashing Apps has highlighted 19 great Halloween ads for your viewing pleasure in their post, 19 Creative Halloween Advertisements.

5. Play one of our favorite Halloween games, Halloween Pumpkins, right here!

6. Pumpkin carving at Martha Stewart – MarthaStewart.com offers pumpkin templates, pumpkin projects for kids, pumpkin creatures, and more of Martha’s tips and tricks for creating gorgeous jack o’ lanterns of your own.

And the last four are our favorite Halloween videos with instructions on making some fun & spooky Halloween crafts and treats!

7. Halloween Cat Origami for kids and adults:

8. Halloween Marshmallow Ghosts and Ghouls Recipe:

9. Spirited Halloween Cupcakes from Food Network:

10. And finally, catch up on your Halloween history with this video from National Geographic:

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photo credit: eyeliam

photo credit: kumar303

“Jack Argh Lantern”

photo credit: AlwaysSecondBest

Here’s a pumpkin lineup with some cute ideas – I think I like the one with the bats best:

photo credit: kdnewton

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1. Halloween Pictures of the Week