Sometimes in the warmer climates of Southern California we need to be reminded that the seasons are changing, but there is still a sense that summer is over and we’re moving into that transition time before winter. We begin to make changes to our lifestyle, our eating habits, and reflect the season in our home decor as we decorate for fall.

These changes don’t have to be drastic or expensive, there are lots of simple decorating ideas you can use to convey that autumn feel.

Cooler months convey cozy and warm, and this means warming up the colors in your home. Bring out the darker cushions and patterns; try adding throw rugs or draping an afghan over the sofa or an easy chair.

Pick-up some accent pieces to spread the autumn flavor, such as new coasters, lamps, a vase or piece of artwork.

Add some life with a new plant, real or artificial. It’s also a great way to hide empty spaces or unsightly stains.

Open your mind to new ideas and try rearranging your furniture. It’s so easy to get yourself into a rut with the same room settings, and you’ll be surprised at the difference it can make. I remember having a dining room table that was placed parallel to a large window. It took up most of the room, but I couldn’t imagine it any other way. A friend stopped in one day and suggested I change the position of the table so that it was placed vertically in front of the window. I was horrified, stating, “It would never work”.

She convinced me to try it; grabbing the table and moving it quickly, before I could change my mind. Once the table was in place, the whole area opened up. The extra space allowed me to add a couple of extra pieces of furniture on both sides and a big comfy chair; suddenly I had a new room.

Along the same lines, rearranging may mean removing a piece of furniture from an overcrowded room. You may be accustomed to seeing things designed a certain way, but it doesn’t mean they have to stay that way.

Don’t restrict your changes to the indoors; nothing is more welcoming than a harvest wreath hanging on the front door or a big basket of fresh mums on the porch.

For a Halloween feel, fill a black basket with bright orange sunflowers.

Take all those summer decorating items and store them in a box, so that they’ll be handy for the spring decorating season. Nothing freshens up a house more, than change; be bold, be fearless and enjoy!

The origin of Halloween began as a day of religious ceremony, deaths and worship well over 2000 years ago. Throughout the passing of time, conquering armies and the rise of Christianity, the original dreary tone of Halloween was dropped and forgotten to be replaced by that of festivities and celebration. As it is with all things, Halloween took another turn yet again in the global, entrepreneurship and profit driven word of the twenty first century.

No longer just a simple festival and celebration, Halloween is one of the most popular holiday in the western world with expect consumer spending of almost eight billion dollars just in the United States alone. Halloween’s popularity grows every year- such growth can be attributed to products of the twentieth century such as mass marketing and increasing social networking. Beneath the growth, Halloween is evolving yet again, if ever noticeably.

To many, the mere thinking of Halloween brings up such thoughts as trick or treating and children in Halloween costumes. However, there will no doubt be many of you that have spotted the trend of decreasing amount of trick or treaters every year for many years now. As a matter of fact, the Halloween industry today is driven mainly by adult consumers spending on items such as Halloween house decorations and adult Halloween costumes. Of the nearly three billion annual sales of Halloween costumes, two thirds of which are adult Halloween costumes.

As society evolves and changes, the way of Halloween also changes. Life has never been more demanding and as a result: less time are spent on social gatherings and festivities. Halloween as a result, became almost a “speed networking” event in modern terms. Halloween became a “get away” day for many adults looking to get away from the work life for the night, a night to have fun and enjoy themselves.

As cue taken from the consumers, adult Halloween costumes became flashier, more extravagant, and as a recent trend, more revealing. The more demanding everyday life become, the more attractive the idea of a get away is. The modern Halloween now express this trend as many adults now uses Halloween as the one night to go wild, dress in excess in every way because Halloween allows them to get away with it. Also with the influx of movies and television, the amount of Halloween costume ideas exploded leading to even more extremes of extravagances and showing off.

However, there is a deeper reasoning behind the growth of Halloween for adults and a decline in the old Halloween traditions- many of which I will try to go over in the next part. The ways of which the modern world has changed affects society on every level more so than just Halloween and the key to understand it lies in the ideas and movement that pushes the change itself.

On October 31 each year, is the Halloween festival for demos and ghosts turning out in West, as the story goes that its origin could been traced back to the fifth century BC, at that time the Celtic living in Ireland’s agreed on this day as the end of the summer, and it also indicates the end of a year, they believed that on the eve of the alternation of a new year and old year, all laws of the time and the space will be suspended for the time being, and the door of the spirit world in this evening will open, thus make all ghosts had a opportunity to walk through the earth, and to find a suitable substitute which could help her to gain a reborn chance. So, as been afraid of becoming the goal of the ghosts, the Celtics put down the fire and to pretended that nobody were at home, at the same time, they wearing awful and ferocious masks and dressed into ghosts and demons walk along the street, hereby to produce a noisy and hubbub atmosphere in order to drive away those wandering ghosts and spirits.

Gradually, these customs have evolved into a celebration of young peoples today, in this evening everybody could disguised themselves to the top of their bent and enjoy a happy festival.

In the evening of Halloween there’s also a parade particularly in the New York City, in which a group of vampires, zombies, witches and Frankenstein and so on will appeared together at that night, and common citizens are also been welcomed to visit, all members no matter what age, sex, class or nationality, even if you are a coward, could join them to enjoy this hot and bustling carnival of ghosts and human beings.

In fact, these ghosts and spirits are all disguised by people, so it’s not terrible really, on the contrary, there are some small grimaced impersonators are very lovely and funny, among in them as if you had been attended in a large fancy ball.

In these various playacting roles, the witch and the corpse are the most played character selected by people, and to meet the demand, those shops who specially supplied Halloween products or decorations also have prepared for this group of Halloween costumes for sale.

At the same time, each year those manufacturers will launch masks and costumes in Halloween whose designs are based on the hottest figure in that year on the market, so that more people could be involved in the hot trend of this traditional western holiday, for example, the figure of small wizard in the movie Harry Potter has become a featured character that a number of children were bound to choose.

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