nextgen_misc:

All Hallow's Eve, or Halloween as it has been come to be called, is a popular holiday with children and adults alike. It is a holiday that had its roots in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain or Summer's End. Samhain celebrated the end of the "lighter half" of the year and the beginning of the "darker half".

On this evening the barriers between this world and the Otherworld were believed to be thin and the spirits, good and bad, of the dead could pass through. The spirits of the family's ancestors were welcomed in while evil and bad spirits were warded off by the wearing of masks and costumes. The costumes and masks disguised one as a harmful spirit and avoided harm from others.

It was also a harvest celebration and time to take stock of food stores for the winter. Livestock were slaughtered and the meat prepared for storage. It was the final harvest of the year and the crops were then stored for the winter. Celebrations included bonfires and tales of the family's ancestors.

It was a celebration of the dead and of the harvest.

Today we dress up in scary and not so scary costumes and masks and go door to door for candy or attend costume parties. It is a night for revelry, pranks and fun.

In New York every Halloween a charity masquerade ball was held. The proceeds benefited local charities that helped those who were more unfortunate than others.

ng_independent:

Xua Lia, Madame Masque, was pleased. Very pleased. The sales of her masks had exceeded expectations. She did regret that she had no more of the fancy masks or the other special ones to ship out. Had she anticipated sales being this good, she would have worked harder and made more masks. Next year. There was always next year.

There were still things to do. She had to make sure other arrangements were in place. What fun was it creating these masks and not seeing her handiwork in action? She looked at the list of calls she had to made and grabbed her phone.

ng_independent:

Xua Li smiled with self-satisfaction as she looked at the boxes that were stacked up and ready to be shipped out. Inside the boxes were the results of a year of work. Half of the boxes contained delicate masks that were destined to wind up in the shops where the elite of New York shopped. Those masks had been designed specifically for that crowd.

The other half were destined to go to the stores where the more common folk shopped. The masks in those boxes had been designed with some very specific things in mind. The masks were of different creatures from myth and legend and would be perfect for would be trick-or-treaters.

Xua couldn't wait to see the results of her hard work. Nearly a year she had labored away to make all of the masks in time for Halloween.

It would be a Halloween to remember.