holidays

Extreme Pumpkins: Diabolical Do-It-Yourself Designs to Amuse Your Friends and Scare Your Neighbors

Pumpkins are supposed to be scary!

Based on his popular and addictive website ExtremePumpkins.com, Tom Nardone has created a full-color guide to pumpkin carving that's truly frightening. Featuring the website's signature Puking Pumpkin, and spanning everything from Drowning Pumpkin, Crime Scene Pumpkin, and Cannibal Pumpkin to Electrocuted Pumpkin and other never-before-seen designs, this gleefully gory guide is nothing short of a manifesto to take back Halloween from the cheerful, the cutesy, and the parent-sanctioned. For the egg-throwing, toilet tissue- streaming, window-soaping teenager in all of us, finally- a whole new way to celebrate October 31.

Halloween: Customs, Recipes & Spells

From Old World roots to New World charm, traverse the hodge-podge of legends and customs that created this modern tradition. Learn how history produced many inaccurate myths about the original Halloween, also called "Samhain," and how modern pagans still view it as a religious celebration. Discover practices, rituals and recipes that honor the spirit of the holiday, adaptable any spiritual orientation.

It's a Wonderful Christmas: The Best of the Holidays 1940-1965

Even now that we're all grown up, we can't help but look back on our childhood holidays and hope to recapture that elusive spirit of joyful anticipation. Celebrating Christmas is so often about nostalgia. With a nod and a wink to the days of Christmas past, It's a Wonderful Christmas presents classic images of the Yuletide icons of mid-20th-century America.

Bubbler lights and glow-in-the-dark icicles. Catalogues crammed with toys. Norad bulletins tracking Rudolph's red nose through the nighttime sky. Along with hundreds of such quintessentially American illustrations, author Susan Waggoner stocking-stuffs her lively text with fascinating bits of information, lore, and lists. Wonder what the all-time most popular Christmas song is? How the tradition of the department store Santa got started? The answers are here. Loaded with images of vintage Christmas cards, wrapping paper, magazine ads, Lionel toy trains, and more, all in full color, this charming book will appeal to anyone who associates Christmas with home movies, "The Chipmunk Song," and Santa relaxing with an ice-cold bottle of Coca-Cola. AUTHOR BIO: SUSAN WAGGONER is the author of several illustrated books, including Vintage Cocktails (STC). A native of Minnesota, she currently lives in New York City.

Halloween: An American Holiday, an American History

Halloween has evolved from the Celtic celebrations of 2,000 years ago to become today the fastest-growing holiday in the country. This, the only book to completely cover All HallowÂ’s Eve, from its beginnings to the present, examines the ancient origins as well as its traditions and celebrations, from costuming to bobbing for apples. Jack-o-lanterns, black cats, and witches are explained. Ghosts, ghouls, and goblins lurk behind every page.

The book traces the contributions of AmericaÂ’s immigrants to the holiday, documenting the beliefs each ethnic group has added to the mix. Related recipes, poems, songs, and photos perfectly complement the meticulously documented text. The result is the most educational and entertaining examination of Halloween, its myths, and its truths.

The Joy of Family Traditions: A Season-by-Season Companion to 400 Celebrations and Activities

When a special activity evolves into a tradition within a family, it creates meaning, connection, and community and makes common occasions more momentous and memorable. Establishing a sense of stability and shared history has never been more important to parents than it is today, as families become more fractured and scattered. THE JOY OF FAMILY TRADITIONS offers more than 400 fresh ideas and creative approaches to cultivating birthday, anniversary, holiday, and other rite-of-passage and seasonal traditions that strengthen personal bonds and reflect a family's individual style, spirituality, and values.

All Year Round (Lifeways)

This book is a treasure trove of tomorrow's fond childhood memories, all mingled with a mix of colored thread, delicious cooking smells, softly sparkling candlelight, and the snatches of favorite songs.

Brimming with stories, poems, activities, things to make, and songs, All Year Round offers a friendly guide to the seasonal round of festivals. Helpful drawings and diagrams illustrate this practical book. It contains a wealth of experience that can help families find their own way around the year.

Parents are encouraged to develop their traditions and family ways using this as a springboard. As the authors say, "the words are ours, the festivals are yours."

The authors believe that observing a round of festivals is an enjoyable way of bringing rhythm into children's lives, a way of providing meaningful landmarks to look forward to. Experiencing the unfolding year through stories, poems, and making seasonal tables encourages a love of nature. Each festival has a character of its own, bringing a special gift to family life. Celebrating together is important for families in all kinds of ways. This book offers suggestions about how to get going to all those who wish to deepen their understanding of the festive year.

The Pagan Mysteries of Halloween: Celebrating the Dark Half of the Year

Celtic scholar Jean Markale explores "the shadowy zones" of All Hallows' Eve in The Pagan Mysteries of Halloween. Though the name comes from the Christians' All Saints' Eve, Halloween can be traced back thousands of years to Samhain--the beginning of the "dark half" of the Celtic yearly calendar. As a feasting and merrymaking festival, Samhain lasted about three days, and attendance was mandatory, according to Markale. It was also the time when fairy folk made themselves available to humans, and the borders between the worlds of the living and the dead were said to blur. Markale is a thorough historian, offering a plausible account of how Samhain evolved into the modern day celebration. For readers seeking general Halloween information, Markale may be too dry and detailed. But for those intrigued by pagan festivals and lifestyle, this could be as delectable and coveted as a bag of Halloween candy. --Gail Hudson

A comprehensive examination of the rituals and philosophies of the Celtic holiday of Samhain, the inspiration for Halloween.

• Presents the true meaning of this ancient holiday and shows how contemporary observances still faithfully reflect the rituals of pagan ancestors.

• Explains why this holiday, largely confined to the English-speaking world since the advent of Christianity, has spread throughout the rest of Europe over the last two decades.

One of humanity's most enduring myths is that the dead, on certain nights of the year, can leave the Other World and move freely about the land of the living. Every year on October 31, when the children of the world parade through the streets dressed as monsters, skeletons, and witches, they reenact a sacred ceremony whose roots extend to the dawn of time. By receiving gifts of sweets from strangers, the children establish, on a symbolic plane that exceeds their understanding, a fraternal exchange between the visible world and the invisible world. Author Jean Markale meticulously examines the rituals and ceremonies of ancient festivities on this holiday and shows how they still shape the customs of today's celebration. During the night of Samhain, the Celtic precursor of today's holiday, the borders between life and death were no longer regarded as insurmountable barriers. Two-way traffic was temporarily permitted between this world and the Other World, and the wealth and wisdom of the sidhe, or fairy folk, were available to the intrepid individuals who dared to enter their realm. Markale enriches our understanding of how the transition from the light to the dark half of the year was a moment in which time stopped and allowed the participants in the week-long festival to attain a level of consciousness not possible in everyday life, an experience we honor in our modern celebrations of Halloween. 

Halloween: Romantic Art and Customs of Yesteryear Postcard Book

Taken from the book of the same title is a selection of the images of Halloween as celebrated in the early twentieth century, when it was a romantic holiday, a time for soothsaying traditions in love and luck. The years from 1900 to 1918 are considered the 'Golden Age of Postcards' -- a time when lavishly designed and printed cards were exchanged at every available occasion. Halloween cards were extremely popular, full of all the vivid imagery of the occasion, and are highly sought-after collector's items today. These beautifully illustrated postcards capture the essence of the romantic art and customs of yesteryear and are a delightful commemoration of America's fastest-growing holiday: Halloween.

A Halloween How-To: Costumes, Parties, Decorations, and Destinations

What is the difference between a goblin and a ghoul? What's the recipe for pumpkin soup? Where can you see the oldest Halloween parade in the United States? Have you ever wondered how to keep your carved pumpkin from decaying too quickly? If you are looking for information and instructions about every aspect of Halloween, you have come to the right place. This book is packed with ideas for October 31. There are fifty great costumes you can make yourself, recipes for everything from fake blood to pumpkin soup, and lists of great movies, CDs, and spooky books. Lesley Bannatyne has even assembled a number of games drawn from early twentieth-century Halloween celebrations, and includes sample text for party invitations.

In the Eye of the Sun: Mexican Fiestas

A study, in photographs, of the popular fiestas of Mexico, showing the inhabitants of several Mexican villages. The fiestas intertwine some of the great pagan festivals with Catholic ritual and tradition. These photographs show family scenes, revellers and religious ceremonies.