Halloween Merrymaking: An Illustrated Celebration of Fun, Food, and Frolics from Halloweens Past - Hardcover

Arkins, Diane

4.03

32 ratings by Goodreads

9781589801134: Halloween Merrymaking: An Illustrated Celebration of Fun, Food, and Frolics from Halloweens Past

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 158980113X ISBN 13: 9781589801134

Publisher: Pelican Publishing, 2004

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Recipes, games, costumes, party ideas, and decorations, along with excerpts from vintage periodicals, show the gaiety that epitomized historic Halloween celebrations.

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From the Inside Flap:

"October, the golden month, when Nature having reaped a wonder harvest of beauty, wastes it like a spendthrift for our joy! What hostess can fail of success in entertaining this month when there are autumn leaves, flowers, 'golden glorious,' and vines flushing with crimson, to bedeck the table?"
--The Housekeeper, October 1910

For late-October revelers, Halloween has traditionally been filled with surprise. Contemporary readers, though, might be amazed to discover how vastly differently this popular holiday was celebrated in America during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Halloween observances staged between the late 1870s and the early 1930s--a period often referred to as the holiday's "Golden Age"--routinely boasted decorations gleaned from nature, clever homemade party favors, winsome (not gruesome) masquerade attire, and intriguing old, old-fashioned games that were often designed to divine the identity of one's future mate.
Halloween Merrymaking: An Illustrated Celebration of Fun, Food, and Frolics from Halloweens Past offers a fascinating glimpse at material from a vast assortment of the vintage party guides and magazines that guided intrepid hostesses in their quests to stage parties worthy of the holiday's reputation for mystery and fun. Filled with illustrations and mementos, Halloween Merrymaking pays splendid tribute to the imaginative festivities of yesteryear.

From the Back Cover:

"A unique window on American culture and a treasure trove of ideas for planning an old-fashioned celebration of your own."
--Victorian Decorating & Lifestyle

"Sure to be remembered as one of the most surprising and delightful additions to holiday books in a long time."
--Tampa Tribune

"Author Diane Arkins has collected old-fashioned poems and prose, vivid images, and fanciful illustration to recreate a holiday based on the joy of the harvest. If you love Halloween, you'll love this."
--Country Collectibles

Halloween Merrymaking: An Illustrated Celebration of Fun, Food, and Frolics from Halloweens Past offers fascinating material from vintage party guides and magazines that guided hostesses in their quests to stage parties worthy of the holiday's reputation for mystery and fun. Filled with illustrations and mementos, this book pays splendid tribute to the imaginative festivities of yesteryear.

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