DECK THE HOLIDAY'S

   Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right! Here I  am stuck in the middle of them! (a little verse from a Gerry Rafferty song).  Clowns could be a nightmare to someone suffering from  Coulrophobia .  It is estimated that as many as 1 out of 7 people suffers from a fear of clowns.    For those suffering from Courophobia, Bozo and his red-nosed brethren are anything but funny or amusing.  Surprisingly, the fear of clowns is one of the top ten most common phobias.  While it may seem funny that grown men and women alike may shirk in fear from seemingly harmless, albeit doofy characters with over-sized shoes and rainbow suspenders, for them it is no laughing matter. While the cause of Courophobia isn't necessarily known and is different for everyone, one common theory holds that the root cause most likely stems fro a traumatic childhood experience.  Maybe you were squirted by one too many trick flowers while a white fac...

     I know that Halloween is closer than Christmas is but I think it's time for a little change up (It's my favorite, right next to Halloween).  Let us not forget about Thanksgiving, the holiday that gets hardly any praise at all by most people.  Here's a list of some Christmas trivia and folklore for all of us to enjoy!    Let's take a look back at the origins of Christmas and some of the lesser known facts involving one of my favorite holiday's. While the Pilgrims may have been responsible for beginning the tradition of Thanksgiving, they did not celebrate Christmas--it was against their Puritan belief and in fact, it was illegal. It was once believed that whoever (husband or wife) first brings holly into the house will rule the home all year. (wishful thinking on the mans part these days.) Young men of the 1700's believe that if they saw a redheaded girl at Christmastime, he would be pursued by flame-haired vixens thro...

    In recent years, modern witches have become more and more accepted. Some of them play on many of the old concepts of a traditional 'witch', but by and large the stereotypical image of a broom riding crone with a point hat does not match at all with the reality. So where is it that this image came from? Many of the common 'wicked witch' images are derived from periods of time when a witch was considered to be a catch-all term for a person who had a pact with demons or the devil himself. These are just a few of the origins for the iconic 'witch'.     Conical Hats  - Medieval woodcuttings showed any number of variations on what witches wore, so where did the conical black hat with the wide rim originate? The witches hat became known as it is now somewhere between Victorian times and the turn of the century. They became common in the illustration of evil witches in children's stories. Why did it become thus? That is less clear. There ar...