I hope that you all had a nice and safe Hallowe'en/Samhain! :D
I was making and baking most of the day and wore myself out - not having the time to blog this yesterday!
It is obligatory in this house to carve a pumpkin lantern, although in previous years here, I have had to make do with a melon as pumpkins were not in the shops! I made pumpkin cookies - a firm favourite in this house and pumpkin pie. I used up the last of the pastry by making jam tarts and some beefy dog treats for Dexter.
Jakes girlfriend Minna said it was the first pumpkin she had ever even held, let alone seen cut into a lantern in the flesh, although she had seen it on TV. It goes without saying that she hadnt eaten the cookies or pie before either. It is interesting how cultures differ.
More and more Hallowe'en IS being adopted here though. The Tiimari store has endeavoured to include a Hallowe'en range, although I dont think it has taken off very much - up here anyway. (Question to my Finnish readers - What is it like down south?)
Having said that, I am really pleased to announce that after five and a half years of living here in Lapland, we got our FIRST ever Hallowe'en witches this year! As you may have read, Witches fly at Easter here... So it was actually quite a shock to have these three girls, two - sisters perhaps - dressed in Tiimari red witch outfits and another cute little devil! Overall a totally different feel from the Easter Witch outfits and thankfully - for me - very much like Hallowe'en should be! Granted they arrived the day before Hallowe'en LOL.. which was part of the shock, but they still got rewarded with plenty of sweets for their trouble and their daring in coming out in the cold dark snowy night to ask 'Karkki vai kepponen?' (Sweets or trick? in Finnish)
Don't they look great? They made my day!
I've heard of some people refusing kids anything - telling them to just come back at Easter instead, that Finns do NOT do Hallowe'en - but I would not be so harsh - they are kids after all and just out for a bit of fun. In the UK it really is trick or treat and the tricks are NOT nice! So, they are lucky to be refusing in Finland - or they might find their bins turned over or their windows egged and floured!
We also had three lads on Hallowe'en itself, but they were not really dressed up apart from a painted on moustache (?) and purely opportunists in my book - probably heard from the girls that this was a good place to visit! Still, they were not to be refused some sweets. My eldest son had answered the door and said, 'Oh we dont have any sweets' - the rotter! So the kids ran off and when he came inside and told me what he had done I was really quite cross, so much so that I made him go out into the snow to find the boys and make them come back! (LOL....'Big Witchy Cackle!')
In actual fact, I think my pumpkin looks more scary today than yesterday... LOL...
Ok, so what else.. Oh yes, Dexter, our Husky had his second birthday last sunday. I meant to blog this then, but time just escaped me. I cannot believe where the year has gone since I blogged his 1st Birthday images!
He got a couple of new toys one rope bear, which no long looks like a bear..LOL.. and a squeaky mouse with a long tail, which actually is still intact - as he has fun tossing the tail up and making it squeak. We bought that because he has a wicked fondness for hunting voles in the forest and doing the same to them! Poor things...
Oh and of course he had his birthday dinner and candle - when we sang 'Happy Birthday' to him.. all the time he was just looking at his dinner thinking 'Cant I just eat it???' :D
I am glad to say that it is back to being pretty in Lapland. We have had some beautiful sunrises and sunsets this past week or so. It truly is one of the things I like most about living here. These photos I took when we were driving home, so please excuse the mucky windscreen! Beautiful colours, almost sci-fi ish and showing us the arc of the planet - up here at the top of the world... lovely!
The other images I have taken, I have put together as a slide for ease. Enjoy and have a nice week!
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