For my own memories, I wanted to make sure I put together the annual post of photos from this year's Samhain and Halloween. I documented 2021, 2022, and 2024 but missed 2023, which is a huge shame, so although I only have a handful of photos, this is 2025.
We were away from the 29th until the 31st, so we woke up in the most magical place on Halloween morning, and it was very bittersweet to leave. We then drove over to the west, and on the day of our 6th (Iron) anniversary, had a traditional handfasting ceremony at Gretna Green, before heading back home for the evening of Halloween and Samhain.
As I've mentioned in previous posts, this year our Halloween/Samhain/Anniversary looked a little bit different!This was the first time since 2019, the year we got married, that we spent the 31st of October away from home. And it was weird. Don't get me wrong, it was a much needed, well appreciated and a wonderful time...it was just so strange spending the most important day of the year away from home.
This is just a quick round up of what we actually did this Halloween, with plenty of photos. There will be many more posts to follow of our accomadtion, adventures and a dedicated post of our 2022 decorations.
Of course for us Halloween is more than a one day celebration, though for some reason this October didn't feel as October-y as Octobers normally feel. It was a busy month, I was on shift for my bereavment support role the week ending on the 30th and Mr H was at work a lot so of the things we'd usually do during the month didn't really happen. Decor went up later than usual and traditional movies didn't get watched. So to counteract that we extended into November!
Have a peek below to see how our non-tradtional tradtional Halloween and Samhain went...
Above shows the 31st of October 2022. Our 3rd wedding anniversary, 4th of being together and the day we travelled to our accomadation. On the way to our final destination we took the opportunity to stop by the famous Kelpies for a visit, before heading on to the Wallace Monument woodland trail and finally home for the next 2 nights...Bag End. Again, there will be individual posts on all of these places so I won't say too much now. By the time we got the fire lit and settled into our little Burrow the sun was already setting so it was time to prepare our Samhain meal. Although we had similar foods to our usual Samhain meal (we cooked a lot at home in the morning and was able to reheat it using the hob there), it was different this year as we were unable to set a place for those departed nor did not have my little alter of photos of our lost loved ones - I hope they knew that no matter where we are, no matter the day of the year we are always thinking of them and welcome their presence always. To end the evening we carved our Jack O Lanterns from the pumpkins that provided the main ingredient for the soup we ate.
Waking up somewhere so magical and so perfect for us was surreal. With a skylight above the bed, light rain in the early hours woke us up after a slight lay-in at around 7am. We had originally planned to head over to Loch Lomond though we ended up deciding to have a slower mini-break, staying closer to the accomadation meaning we had more time to really enjoy being there. I had found some cool ruins online in a woodland walk near Stirling University that had a view of Wallace Monment from them so we headed there, parked up and headed out on what ended up a 5 mile hike. The original ruins alluded us, desptie looping around and climing up steep leaf covered hills but we did have a wonderful walk seeing many auntumn sights as well as Logie Kirk and the Old Logie Kirk 'ruins' and cemetary. Back at Bag End I took some time to get lots of photos while it was still light, including our Novemeber portraits. We had vegan burgers and potatoes for tea and tried to play a board game...try being the principal word as it wasn't the most user friendly starting out!
We left Bag End with heavy hearts on the 2nd and headed home happily to our babies! My parents had come to look after them, which we are so greatful for because if it weren't for them we'd never leave home at all. I don't trust any one else looking after the zoo! We had a normal evening on the 2nd but once my parents had gone home on the 3rd we had a traditional Hallow Halloween! Complete with pizza, crisps, sweets, cocktails and movies. (I think we were going to do it all over again in December too haha!).
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And that was our Samhain, Halloween and Anniversary celebrations! I look forward to sharing lots more photos over the coming months and would love to hear how you spent the magical month of October!
The hallowed month has arrived again, and the Hallows are excited! This year will be the first time we will have been away from home for Halloween (apart from our wedding night in 2019 when we went to Edinburgh) as we have booked a couple of nights in a special little type of cottage - the pets will have a sleepover with Granny and Granda. Anyway, as we aren't going to be home for the actual day of Halloween, our whole month of celebrations will be slightly different to the usual. Still, here is a little bucket list for the month.
Things to Watch
Hocus Pocus 2
The Witches of Eastwick
Practical Magic
The Craft
The Worst Witch Series 1998
Things to Read
The Girl and the Ghost by Hanna Alkaf
Hocus Pocus & the All-New Sequel
The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker by Lauren James
Llewellyn's Little Book of Halloween
Activities to Do
Samhain Dinner
Halloween-themed Lino Printing Birthday Tattoo Carve Our Jack O Lanterns
It may be almost a month since the most wonderful time of the year passed, however, I still want to round up our Halloween month and check in on my bucket list for the month to see how we did. Originally, this post was scheduled for last Wednesday but I had other stuff going on so decided to miss a week. It's never a bad thing to string out Halloween for as long as possible though haha. So here is the run down...
Ticking off the Bucket List:
Carve Pumpkins ✔️
Make Vegan Halloween Treats
Camp Inside ✔️
Visit Whitby
Do DIYs ✔️
Watch the 31 Movies ✔️
Try Candy Corn ✔️
Decorate ✔️
Read my Oct TBR ✔️
Sabrina Halloween Marathon ✔️
Do Tattoos
Have a Woodland Walk ✔️
Samhain Rituals ✔️
To check off 10 out of 13 things from my 'bucket list' is rather satisfying, especially considering I feel like I do nothing at all these days! I'll include a video above of our Jack 'O Lanterns for this year, we did set up the tent and have a camping-in-the-living room night earlier in the month when Mr H was off work, DIY wise I made some clay ghosts, painted a ceramic pumpkin and cleaned/arranged a bird skull we'd found months prior. We may not have watched the exact 31 movies I listed in the previous post but we did watch 28 movies and 6 TV shows (including a Sabrina Halloween episode marathon!) which I will accept to tick two off! I got to finally try candy corn and I enjoyed it, I decorated, read 4 books and we had an awesome walk to Duddo Stone Circle as well as a rare trip to the beach with Baker - see his photos here. Finally, we had a wonderful Samhain where we laid the table and had a filling, seasonal, comfort food dinner including a pumpkin soup Mr H made from the inners of our carved pumpkins!
What We Watched: Edward Scissorhands R.L. Stine's Monsterville: Cabinet of Souls Hocus Pocus 9 The Reaping Twitches Ghostbusters Ghostbusters 2016 Twitches Too The Others The Witches The Witches 2020 The Woman in Black Behind the Attraction: Haunted Mansion Toy Story of Terror The Haunting Disney's Lonesome Ghosts Disney's Trick or Treat Mom's Got a Date with a Vampire The Haunted Mansion The Ghosts of Buxley Hall The Addams Family Blackbeard's Ghost Crimson Peak The Watcher in the Woods The Nightmare Before Christmas Casper Coco -- Sabrina the Teenage Witch Halloween Episodes x7 The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Episodes x7 Most Haunted Misc Episodes x 4 Goosebumps S1 The Worst Witch S1 Broadmoor: A History of the Criminally Insane
What I Read: Ghost Squad by Claribel A. Ortega The House in the Woods by Yvette Fielding The Company of Ghosts by Berlie Doherty Ghostly Tales: Spine-Chilling Stories of the Victorian Age
To see a closer look at our actual day on Halloween aka our wedding anniversary, you can check out this post Photo An Hour - A Day in My Life [October 2021]. It was one of my best ever Halloweens and I look forward very much for next years celebration!
