Decorate Yourself With A Halloween Mask!
Halloween masks are great Halloween decoration ideas! Keep your friends guessing as to who you are and let the scary side of yourself emerge!
As you know, Michael Myers is the fictional character from the Halloween series of Slasher films. He first appears in John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) as a young lad who murders his older sister; and then, fifteen years later, he returns home to murder some more teenagers.
This Rob Zombie Michael Myers mask will surely scare and also surprise your friends and guests this Halloween! This mask is a full overhead mask with pale face detailing on one side and blood and scars covering the other side.
Or perhaps you would prefer to be Mr Living Dead? This zombie has now escaped from his graveyard and now he’s getting ready to feast on your soul. Wonderful for Halloween Decoration Ideas.
This is a flesh-colored mask with eye holes and a sunken face topped off with brown shoulder length hair.
Want to look less scary – look crazy instead! Give everyone something either to laugh at or worry about.
Is your craziness just an act or are you showing your real self? Let them guess! The Crazy Al mask will set everyone wondering.
This is a half mask with big eyes and white hair.
Or maybe you think it is time you had some sympathy. You don’t want to scare people but just chat and commiserate. You won’t frighten anyone with the Rag Doll Mask. This poor rag doll has had a hard life and needs you to wear it.
For more Halloween decoration ideas.
History of Halloween
For centuries, people in the British Isles developed their own regional interpretations of these holidays. To replace the ancient practice of leaving food and wine for spirits on Samhain, the church encouraged the distribution of “soul cakes” on All Soul’s Day. Working- class children went from door to door “souling” on November 1, begging for soul cakes in exchange for promises to pray for the dead.
Divination still remained a part of the holiday, too. In some parts of Britain and Ireland, Halloween was called Nutcrack Night or Snap Apple Night because of the divination games people played. Young girls labeled nuts, one for each potential suitor, then threw them into the fire. The nut that cracked represented her future husband. Snap Apple was a game in which apples were suspended from the ceiling by strings. The first person to grasp an apple with her teeth would be the first to marry.
The holiday was primarily a quaint family celebration with none of the ghoulish associations it holds today. In the nineteenth century, immigration brought people from the British Isles to the United States in great numbers, and with them they brought their traditions, including Halloween. By this time, Halloween had lost its religious significance and had once again become a folk holiday. Each new generation created a Halloween that reflected the popular culture of the time.
A Victorian Halloween reflected the preoccupation with romance so common in that era, and divination games were the primary activities of the evening. Halloween was more like Valentine’s Day, so it was seen as the province of singles, especially young women. Since no one believed in fairies anymore, it was up to young boys to make mischief. They overturned outhouses, broke windows, and sometimes got into serious trouble.
Sometime around the turn of the twentieth century, the tide began to turn, and Halloween became a holiday for children. The practice of souling had been reinterpreted as trick- or-treating door to door for candy. To appeal to children rather than scare them, ghosts were depicted as friendly, and jack-o’lanterns had smiling faces. When the cultural tide turned again in the 1970s, children were warned of the possible dangers in their candy bags. Rumors of contaminated candy circulated, and although they were later proven false, parents no longer felt safe sending their children to their neighbors’ doors.
Fundamentalist Christian groups decried Halloween as a devil- worshiping holiday and started a campaign to outlaw it. At the same time, Hollywood started churning out “slashers” which promoted the idea of Halloween as a dangerous time when deranged humans, not spirits, roam the streets with murderous intent.
As the cultural pendulum slowly swings back again, Halloween has once again become a holiday celebrated by both children and adults. It has begun to move back across the Atlantic to the countries of its origin in a new form and has crossed the US borders into Mexico and Canada. It’s anybody’s guess how this holiday will be reinvented as it spreads to other cultures and is discovered by new generations.
Halloween by Joanne OSullivan
Posted in Decoration Ideas