Happy Halloween everyone! How was your day? Did you dress like a vampire or monster and frighten someone? We had lots of fun. There is a lot you can do in London, especially during Halloween. No matter how old you are, you can always have your best time during Halloween. You can join the Halloween parties, participate in Halloween-themed activities or visit some spooky places. Visiting the famous cemeteries and the Tower of London after dark is one of the favourite activities among people here. If you want to avoid the crowd, you can also watch some classic horror movies such as the Dracula, Exorcist, etc.

London has a number of haunted places where you can visit to have that eerie feeling and hear the ghosts scream and shout. I am too scared of all this so I remained at home and had fun with my friends and family. We decorated our home in Halloween style and invited our friends. We bought a jack-o-lantern and placed lights inside it to give a spooky feeling.

You can see these in almost every house. Some people carve out the pumpkins themselves while some buy them from the market. These have special significances. Dadda says, the scary faces carved out on the pumpkin scares away the evil and keeps our hose safe. This is the reason why we keep these jack-o-lanterns on the windows and porches. Mumma dimmed the lights and placed candles on the corners to create the ambience. We dressed up as vampires, witches and monsters. Dadda got the costumes for us. We have a neighbour who makes the costumes and we asked her to make it for us. The costumes were lovely and mumma did all the make-up. She used black kohl to make vampire eyes and used red lipsticks to make bloody lips. She also put red lipstick on one side of the lips that extended to the chin. It seemed as if I drunk blood! Mumma put on her make-up and we were all ready to welcome the guests.

I was waiting for my friends. This year we had planned to go out and ask our neighbours for trick-or-treat. It is a custom where children dressed up as ghosts go from house to house asking for treats such as candies, chocolates, etc. Once someone opens the door, we have to ask ‘trick-or-treat’; if someone says treat, that means they agree to give us whatever we want; but if they deny we can perform mischief to scare them. That’s the trick part.

Me and my friends went around our locality and gathered a lot of treats. Mumma got small pumpkin baskets for us and we collected all the sweets and candies inside it. Mumma and Dadda arranged for Halloween themed snacks and dinner for the guests. We had great fun together. We watched Scooby-doo together, while our parents had a great time talking to each other.

How did you spend your Halloween? How much fun did you have. Tell me all about your Halloween.

We made a lovely paper lantern, as mumma promised me last week. We bought colourful papers and ribbons from the market and made three lanterns. One I will hang on the main entrance, one in mumma and dadda’s room and one in my room.

Mumma searched the Internet and copied the instructions. It was quiet easy. If you want to make paper lanterns too, for decorating your home, here is how you can make it.

For making the paper lantern you will need – construction papers, quick dry glue, scissors and strings.

For the Outer Part:

Cut out a rectangular shape from an A4 sized paper. Fold it rectangular paper in half lengthwise. Put marks at ½ inch intervals on the paper. Then cut 3/4 of the way up the paper along the marks. This will fringe the entire paper lengthwise. Now open the paper and bring the ends together. Stick the ends with help of the quick dry glue and set aside. I used red, blue and orange coloured papers to make three such fringed papers.

Now take another A4 sized paper, preferably of a different colour. I used a white coloured paper for all the three. Now glue it lengthwise so that it makes a thin cylinder. Let the glue dry.

Now place this thin cylinder inside fringed papers. Push the top and bottom ends of the fringed paper towards the middle of the cylinder. Put glue to hold the fringed paper in place. Cut thin strips of coloured papers and cover the visible white portions of the cylinders.

Attach a string to one end of the lantern and it is ready to be hanged! I added some colourful ribbons to the other end of the lantern to make it look even better. You can stick decorative stones, ribbons, stickers or anything else to make the lanterns look good. This is how the lanterns will look:

hese lanterns and place candles inside it to give a different effect. You can also light up tiny lights and place inside the lanterns. You can make lanterns of different sizes and hang them inside and outside your house. If you want to make other types of lanterns, you can do an Internet search and learn how to make other types of lanterns.

You can buy ready-made ones from the market, but mumma says it is always best to make things yourself. It makes you feel proud and increases your creativity. I will save these for Christmas as well.

I just got one idea! I will make a lantern and cover up the bottom and fill it with chocolates for my friends. I will place it right next to the main door, so that whoever comes to our can eat some chocolates. Isn’t it a good idea! See this is why mumma says, you need to try out creative things. You can come up with new ideas and make yourself and others proud!