It’s Halloween! It’s one of the set of similar days with very different tones: There’s the Day of the Dead, with reverence for the departed. There’s Halloween, where in theory the evil spirits have power, but has evolved into a chance to meet the neighbor kids, if only briefly. There’s All Saints Day on November 1, a day of celebration. Following that, on November 2, is All Souls Day, which I remember in particular for that scary sequence in the old Latin liturgy:
O wrath, O day of mourning,
O hear the fateful prophet’s warning,
Heaven and earth in ashes burning. …
When the Judge his seat attaineth,
And each hidden deed arraigneth,
Nothing unavenged remaineth.
What shall I, frail man, be pleading?
Who for me be interceding,
When the just are mercy needing? …
The general tone is aptly captured in Verdi’s or Mozart’s Dies Irae, from their Requiem Masses.
Of course, you might also mistranslate “Dies Irae” as “Day of the Iras”, and listen to Ira Glass’s This American Life, or some of those great songs from George and Ira Gershwin. Or not.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Excellent set of varied-approach Halloween Funnies!
Egging a house as a warning to other kids.
Even though it’s nearly 40 years old, this is still one of my favorite Hallowe’en strips:
Halloween – the second worst birthday of the year (I give those born on Feb 29 preference in the worst day).
But this was a pretty good day – after all these years I have convinced husband not to anything about it. I did all the cooking today (as I normally do daily) and we did NOT go out for dinner or take in. Other than a quick happy birthday when we woke up (followed by a grumbled “uh huh” in thanks) and a call from my mom just as I was about to go and cook dinner so same was delayed it was ignored. Nirvana.
No, it is not my age, it is the day. Growing up party almost always on my birthday – guess what we did at my parties – we went out trick or treating. No arguing over who gets the frosting flowers from the cake. One year when in college when I came home on my birthday my mom was surprised and said if she had known – she had seen the cutest cake. I said to her “vanilla cake, chocolate frosting, plastic fence, cardboard witch, fuzzy cat, plastic pumpkin.” “How did you know?” “Same cake I get every year.” Robert did not believe me – though I was exaggerating – until we cleared out my family home a few years ago and I tossed out the box of cardboard witches, etc.
It kills him that I make a big deal of birthday because he wants same and then cannot do anything for mine.
@ Meryl A – I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: if you don’t like the original date, move it! I got the idea from a close family friend (of my father’s generation) who was born a couple of days after New Year’s, but hated celebrating in winter. I first learned of the switch at a big party she held in early July. I borrowed this idea for my son, whose “real” birthdate is uncomfortably close to Christmas. Starting with his 0.5-birthday (for which I made a semicircular “half” cake), and continuing for more than a decade, we held the official party in late June, which worked perfectly.
Since you can’t do an exact half-year shift from Halloween (because there is no April 31st), you might try celebrating on Guy Fawkes (Nov. 5th), or Saint Martin’s Day (Nov 11th). Another possibility would be to move it by five months and celebrate on April 1st. :-)
P.S. @3 – Tuesday’s “Rhymes With Orange” had a nice Headless Horseman gag:
I have to say, McPherson is not going to get a job illustrating the “mammals” chapter in textbooks, or Black Beauty, because that is one awful horse.
@ Carl Fink (7) – In the past I have been very outspoken about the quality of McPherson’s artwork, but in all fairness, I have to say that his drawing in this post is remarkably better than anything I remember seeing here recently. I even went back through several pages of the CIDU Close to Home tag for comparison, and discovered that the most recent example of his former “truly ugly” drawing style had been posted by CIDU Bill, so perhaps it’s time for me to suspend judgement. I just wish he would get rid of the annoying “bug” he puts in every frame.
For those that celebrate, December 25 or nearby is considered a terrible birthday.
@Brian in STL: Q: What did the wise men say to Baby Jesus as they presented their gifts? A: Here, kid. This is your birthday present AND your Christmas present.
Kilby – I tried for years to switch it to May 1 – no one paid any attention and October 31 it stayed.
Robert doesn’t understand – but whatever I want he tries to do. One thing we had been doing for some decades (since he quit his job and “retired” at least) is we had been going down to Lancaster, PA where there is still Halloween, but due to the Amish not participating in same one can go out to dinner and the servers are dressed as normal and the holiday is much more ignored.
He came up with the idea of doing this after the last time we went out for dinner for my birthday locally. We had a coupon book bought from some local charity for meals at different restaurants. So we were using one for a very nice continental restaurant beyond our normal budget without the coupon – dance band and such – figuring a place of this sort would not be doing anything. Ha Ha! Our bus boy was a science experiment gone wrong and was covered in “blood”. Our waitress was a football player – complete with helmet and covered in “dirt”.
From then until Covid it was Lancaster, PA for a few days for my birthday. Waitresses in normal uniforms. Amish and Mennonite people in their normal clothing…
He had hoped for us to go this year as we have not been down there since Covid other than a one day – drive there and back – earlier this year (and our RV needs to be driven more than just out to the Walmart in Riverhead and back – since it is a Chevy van conversion we take it even when traveling just for the day and not staying over as it is comfortable to travel in and stops adding mileage to our car and van).
But that trip took 6 hours down instead and 6 hours back instead of normal 3.5 hours each way due to construction at the entrances to and on the Verrazno bridge. He was not in the mood to drive that much (and he has to do all the driving as he suffers from motion sickness) and I didn’t care if we went or not, so we did not go for my birthday.