Candles Burn Blood
References to the macabre are hyperbole it seems to me, in relation to our Halloween. American kids look forward to scoring a bagful of free candy treats while thinly disguised in the costume of choice. Halloween is by no means as comparably serious as the Dia de Muertos in Mexico that features offerings to departed souls at makeshift altars, favorite foods, beverages and small items to memorialize the dead.
American Halloween also features carved pumpkin, jack-o-lanterns. The orange pumpkin is an apt symbol of fall, the season of harvest. After sundown a candle or a LED light in a carved pumpkin at the front entrance is a sign that a household is feeling the spirit of the holiday.
At our house a pumpkin-carving-fest was hosted later in the day yesterday. The table of treats were illuminated with 
candles that burned “blood”.
Nearly everyone claimed a pumpkin and found a place at the carving table on the outside deck. The 
“work” of design, sawing openings, and pulling out pulp with seeds began. The work was satisfying as the results plainly show. Experience counts when carving a pumpkin.
After dark a fire pit provided light and warmth. A book of scary stories was produced. Several adults took turns reading a story from collection. We who are in the adult phase of life, remembered the stimulating adventure of the mind, the crazy-fun of scary happenings when we were kids.
Children grow to become future adults. Will they remember the fireside reading of ghost stories? Maybe, and just maybe they will choose to read the same stories to the next generation.
