Pumpkins & Costumes & Doughnuts, Oh My!

October 30, 2015 Cassie Sinichko

Halloween at GWCS is one of those celebrations that can only be described through photos. Lots and lots of photos!

First, SGA sponsors a pumpkin carving contest the afternoon before the Halloween party. This year the winner of the pumpkin contest was Trevor for depicting respected Halloween virtues such as gooey, barfy, pukey and blaaaaah. This is Trevor's second year in a row to win the pumpkin carving contest. He has this art down to a science.

The next morning everyone arrives at school in full costume. Participation is the key to a successful Halloween party and this year the students did us proud. The costumes were creative, funny, ridiculous, bloody, and surprising. The GWCS Halloween party tradition includes a costume fashion show contest. This year's winners were:

Paul, Doughnut King

First prize: Xavier as Slenderman
Second prize: Delia as The Joke and
Jodie as Harley Quinn
Third Prize: Trevor as Wario

Next up was the ever popular dangling doughnut competition. This year's winner was the same as last year's winner. Paul was made to eat dangling doughnuts while blindfolded!

Special thanks to our SGA, Josh, Loea, Lucas, Megan, Paul and Wade, for organizing, decorating and executing a frighteningly fabulous Halloween celebration!

Today Halloween is primarily marked by putting on a disguise and asking for candy, but Halloween has its roots in at least two Medieval celebrations: the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Christian holiday All Saint’s Day. The spooky festival’s name, however, comes from only one.Samhain is Gaelic for “summer’s end,” and marks what has loosely been labeled the “Celtic New Year,” the end of the “lighter half” of the year and the beginning of the “darker half.” One of the four fire festivals of the year, it was celebrated on November 1 when, it was believed, the dead arose for one night. Sound familiar? The other celebration, All Saint’s Day, honors all of the Catholic saints. The Roman Catholic Church refers to it as the “Solemnity of All Saints.” Though this celebration does not bear a close resemblance to the festivities of Halloween, it did give the holiday its name. The word Halloween is a direct derivation of All Saints’ Day. All Hallows in Old English means “the feast of the saints.” Halloween, first attested in the 18th century, is a Scottish variant of All-Hallows-Even. The Even meant evening. The spelling of the word was once Hallowe’en, in which the “v” was elided. The current spelling wasn’t widely adopted until the 20th century.

http://blog.dictionary.com/halloween-een/