Halloween Ritual and Tradition in Belfast

Halloween in Belfast is very different than in America. In Belfast, the kids are in costume and armed with a collection tin FOR MONEY (not candy). They come round knocking on your door all throughout the month of October and it goes something like this...


Ding dong

HopAlong opens door...

A Choir of Children Sing:

Halloween's coming on and the goose is getting fat.
Could you please put a penny in the old man's hat.
If you haven't got a penny, a ha'penny will do.
If you haven't got a ha'penny then god bless you and your old man too.

HopAlong proceeds to tell them that Halloween isn't for another two weeks and slams the door.

Traditional Sunday Roast Dinner

This is a typical Sunday roast dinner consumed in many Irish households. A wholesome, full, tasty meal!

Every Sunday my family gets together for the Sunday roast. In my house we all sit around the table together to eat our dinner and watch t.v. Exciting.

Traditional Tea Ceremony in Northern Ireland

Photo courtesy of blogs.abc.net.au


The Japanese have chado, "the way of tea". The Russians have their Samovar. The English have "high tea". The Indians have chai.

Tea as a beverage has been adopted in many different cultures and many different countries have evolved their own tea traditions. In Northern Ireland, tea is the staple beverage in households. They also have their own special tea ceremony which goes something like this...

Traditional setting: Typical Belfast living room on the Shankill - leather 3 piece sofa, sky sports news blaring from the flat screen tv.

Ceremonial guest enters living room, plops on leather recliner and shouts down the house, "Any fuckin' chance of a cuppa tea?"

Host from the kitchen responds, "Hold your fuckin' horses! I'm sortin' out the messages!"

Ceremonial guest retorts, "Will ya fuckin' hurry up?!? Fuck sake the match is about to start!"

*Loud ruckus of banging pots and pans from the kitchen*

A few minutes later, Host walks into the living room with a cup of milky tea, "Here's your fuckin' tea! Get it yer fuckin' self next time, flat ballix!"

Pancake Tuesday

It's Pancake Tuesday here in Belfast folks! It's the only time of year when stores are stocked with pancake mix and people hoard them like it's a nuclear fallout. Don't ask me why they only eat pancakes once a year because my fiance doesn't even know. I think it ties in with Ash Wednesday so people stuff their bakes with pancakes before they fast for lent. Craig's family is Protestant so I don't understand why they are on the bandwagon, probably because it's a British tradition.

This is the reason why my family sends me a jumbo box of Aunt Jemima pancake mix every couple of months (bless their hearts) because pancakes are outlawed for the rest of the year. Ironically, today is the day when we ran out of Aunt Jemima. :(

Everyone in the family was disappointed because they've had Aunt Jemima for the whole year with their tea thanks to my influence. Hehe. So Craig's mom went to Tesco to buy some mix. And boy, were they sad skinny little thingies.

Craig's sister was pouting and demanded the big fluffy American pancakes. I guess I'm going to have to put another order in with my parents because whatever the princess wants, she gets.