Happy Halloween: Pumpkin carving and sugar skulls || The Brighton side of life

The festive season is upon us as soon as the leaves start to change, and it is noticeably more infectious living in the Northern hemisphere, where pumpkins are actually in season, (as opposed to in New Zealand where Spring has sprung) the weather gets noticeably cooler and the leaves scatter the footpath. I have found myself  "falling" for the season, with all its orange hues, the excuse to drink lots of warm comforting tea and the opportunity to expand my winter wardrobe. Cute cozy hats, come at me!

Who doesn't love a good bear or fox hat?

With pumpkins in almost every shop window, we made an event of it with our fellow Kiwi Brighton-ites, by having an evening carving pumpkins and muling over cider. An activity thoroughly enjoyed by all, at very little expense.

 This was all of our first time pumpkin carving so we bought inexpensive pumpkin carving sets, which included all the fine serrated knives, drills, pounces(?) and templates we needed.

After much concentration and having our hands covered in pumpkin guts, at the end of the evening we had all produced pumpkin carvings we were proud of. I can see this becoming a tradition to add to the collection.

 Making pumpkin totem poles and "scary" faces.

 This makes me think of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" video, with the floating heads Halloween style

One of these things is not like the others.

 We then got inventive by replacing the usual tea light candle, with battery powered multi-coloured fairy lights to create different colours and cool effects.

Pretty cool effect, huh?

 During the week before Halloween we watched a bunch of Halloween movies on Netflix. Some of my favourites are "Hocus Pocus", "The Nightmare before Christmas" and "Frankenweenie".   

I also did a trial run of my Halloween make-up as a "Day of the dead Sugar Skull"

 

and with a few minor alterations, I did both Chris and my makeup on Halloween night.

 Our friends hosted a sweet Halloween party.

 Complete with Halloween inspired food (brain guacamole, blood splattered carrot sticks, spider rice crispy cakes, amongst lots of other goodies.)

My contribution was a spooky (somewhat corny) Halloween playlist (link here) I put together (including some great rock anthems) and some sweet ghoulish muffins.

 The gathering then moved to Komedia where a Halloween themed party was being held, with more weird props, creepy acts and amazing costumes that any of us could ask for.

Happy Halloween, I hope yours was a scream. What is your favourite Halloween movie?