She Walks The Left Hand Path

Wow! A couple days till Thanksgiving here in Canada, things have just been wild here so time is getting away from me in the not the best ways.

BUT! Let’s get right into today’s topic; Gothing Up Thanksgiving!

I love cooking for my family, I love spending time with my family, and any day where I get to do both is a day I’m going to thrive on. So while I can’t decorate or plan the meal myself (since we are living in a generational household now) I will share with you the setup and menu for my DREAM Thanksgiving, Let’s go!~

Colour Scheme: 

Black, Gold, and Deep Plum Black, Silver and Ox blood red Black, Rose gold and Pastel Pink Black, Antique gold and Sage green 

Tablescape:

Starting with a solid coloured table cloth in one of the accent colours (plum, red, green, or pink) and laying a black lace cloth over top. A textured table runner also in black, either velvet, taffeta, or a delicately patterned black quilted runner. I would rather use charger plates than placemats so I would pick chargers in the accent colour and go with simple black dinnerware. Cutlery would be one of the metals, and I would aim for them to be a little more fancy. Napkins would also be cloth and black and the rings would be one of the metals with an accent colour as detail. As the centre display I’m thinking two candelabras in a matte black finish with pearlescent or metallic black taper candles, fall foliage and florals in our accent colours with a cloche on a stand with a delicate display of fungi, moss and bones. I’d also look into vintage coloured glass drinkware, coloured crystal, and coffee and tea cups in the accent colours all mismatched and unique.  

Appetisers:

Cranberry Pecan baked Brie, Prosciutto Asparagus Puff Pastry wraps, and Since we’re Maritimers a Creamy Lobster dip with Toasted Pita, served about two hours before dinner so as not to spoil supper.

Soup/Salad:

Roasted Tomato and Red pepper soup or a Butternut Soup with cheddar and maple bacon. A small serving, and maybe a Autumn pear salad~.

Main Meal:

Now I like a good turkey like everyone else but I hate the heartburn that comes with it afterwards, I say this so that no one freaks out that I won’t be including turkey on my menu list. Instead I think a Roasted rack of lamb that the whole family chips in on would be amazing, with garlic and butter, rosemary, and maybe even some balsamic brown sugar sauce~. Garlic parmesan roasted carrots (cause let’s be honest here I am not going to coin or mash all my veggies….that is a small peeve of mine, but I digress), maple bacon brussel sprouts, caramelised sweet potatoes, and classic creamy garlic mashed potatoes. Then my grandmother’s stuffing and cranberry sauce. Maybe even a delicious mushroom gravy. 

Dessert:

I adore making desserts, and on top of that I love when they are small so I can offer more than one thing, so I would go the route of making little pies such as classic pumpkin, apple, and a cherry. This would be so I could really wow my family with a bigger dessert display of a pecan pie cheesecake (cause I love cheesecake!). This way I could have fun and make tiny options for those who would want something lighter after a rather rich and larger dinner or allow everyone to try a little of everything.

Drinks:

In our house we do wine with dinner so since we’d have lamb I would get a nice red wine, there’s a sweet little place out in the valley that does amazing local wine and their Autumnal red would be so good with this imaginary dinner. After dinner it’s coffee or tea or if we’re feeling saucy a cocktail. Something like an Earl Grey Blackberry Bourbon cocktail, or a Campfire cocktail with a little roasted marshmallow. 

Welcome back, sorry about the long absence, this year has been..for lack of a better phrase, a fking roller coaster ride! But enough about that, we’ve made it to my favourite time of year, SPOOKY SEASON!! Although this year is going to be a little tight I’m hoping I can still make it fun and memorable for Kee. So if you’re anything like me, Hi I’m sorry, you’ll have already started scouring the internet for ideas since like August and pinning and saving ideas left and right. Now is the time we actually sit down and start to make a plan and revisit those pin boards, so grab your biggest coffee cup, put on some Halloween ambience and let’s get to it! 

As we approach the hustle and bustle of the Holiday season it would be a great idea to gather your family around the coffee table (or kitchen table if the coffee table isn’t big enough) and have a little game night!

I love playing games with my family on these dark and chilly nights, especially spooky games, like Call of Cthulhu, Gloom, or even a horror themed D&D session.

Time together with your loved ones is always special but making it fun and spooky makes it even more memorable in my opinion. So while we don’t get to play games very much since busy lives get in the way when we do it’s just magical.

The last time we had a family game was a couple weekends ago and it…was a delightful disaster full of laughs and cussing, so take it from me, learn the game you want to play first before getting your family in on it lol. I am planning another game night with a game I’m a little more familiar with and while it’ll be made a bit easier since Kee is only 10, and really homebrewed, making a slightly spooky D&D game night shouldn’t be too hard.

So in planning this I want to share some ideas and a link to maybe help you the next time you want to plan a family game night.

So since I’m planning it to be a kid friendly D&D one off, I wanted to get Kee his very own dice set (mainly cause I’m superstitious when it comes to my own dice sets) so I bought him a set I know he’ll love that wasn’t too expensive in the chance he really doesn’t like D&D. Aside from the game itself, I am going to make a few little snacks to have while we play and with it being a spooky game I’m thinking of making some themed treats. Checking pinterest for those ideas is always fun for me, since I can find things that maybe aren’t spooky or creepy to start with but can very quickly become a goth-able delicacy with a few adjustments. Like cupcakes can quickly become GUT-cakes, and brownies can very swiftly create grave plots with a little imagination. This board on pinterest I have is where I keep recipe ideas I would like to try or use again and again, and while not everyone in my house is vegan (including myself) I have a fair amount of vegan recipes there since I try to help my tummy not hate me. Other than the game and snacks, creating atmosphere for your game is top of the list to make it memorable, and since it’s D&D that I’m planning on us playing, I have a couple ideas to eventually put into play so my kiddo has the best time, things like getting dressed up, drawing our characters, music, and talking in funny accents.

We may think our little ones don’t care or won’t remember the extra bits we put into family time, but they really do, even with the last game time we had Kee has been asking about doing it again, as he really liked the story telling part of Gloom. The little smile on their faces when you take the extra time to make family time even more special is the real reward at the end of the day.

Hello friends, welcome back to another holiday post! So today we’re talking about traditions, and along with talking about our family traditions I want to mention a few that I really like that are goth learning and fun.

During this time of year families around the world are working at getting ready for the upcoming holiday season, amongst shopping for gifts, decorating your house, planning the big dinner, they’ll find the time to participate in their own family traditions.

In our house we have a big tradition that we’ve been doing since my sister and I were little kids, and that was getting a letter from our Christmas Elves. We didn’t do letters to/from Santa, we got letters from the Elves from his Workshop and I loved that so much that even as a teenager I would still get excited about reading this letter (that I knew my mother was writing) from my Elf. So I took this tradition and started doing it with Kee, and while he’s not super keen on Santa, he adores his Elf. This year we’re kind of mixing it up just a bit and we’re doing our letters as a back and forth kind of thing. I bought a little mailbox from the dollar store and we plan on customising it to better fit our decor and Kee’s style, but essentially we’re going to “send” letters back and forth during December. This is a really cute and fun tradition for the holidays and honestly you can do it all year around with a little modification and imagination.

A tradition I’ll be doing for the first time this year is hanging a spider ornament in my tree, and while I don’t think Kee will honestly care much for the poem that goes along with the tradition of the Christmas Spider, I think by it being there he will ask the questions that will lead to the conversation of why it’s there. I really like the idea behind the Christmas Spider, a family not having much but still getting a tree to at least have something for the season, a spider spinning her web in the tree to make it her home, and Santa seeing this and turning the web into a beautiful addition to the tree to bring the family delight when they wake and allow the spider to still have a home in the tree. I do like it and I think over time Kee will come to cherish the Spider and it’ll be a great addition to our family traditions for the holidays.

When you look at our tree the night before Creepmas, you’re going to find an interesting addition buried in among the branches and other ornaments, the bright green shine of a pickle. The idea behind the Christmas Pickle, is that on Creepmas morning the first to find the pickle will get an extra little something, usually something small or even just a nice piece of candy. The tradition I believe started in Germany, the one to find the pickle said to have a year full of luck, and now days it’s used either as a way to slow down the present opening process by allowing the one to find the pickle to open the first gift, or they get to get an extra present. We do a bit of both but mainly as a way to decide who gets to open the first gift since Kee is an only child.

Another tradition, more legend but I digress is Krampus. In this house we love the legend of Krampus and enjoy reading about him each year. I look forward to Krampusnacht each December, where we make lump of coal cookies and Kay and I try to get through a holiday horror movie. This is a tradition more for Kay and I than for all three of us, since Kee is still a little young to try watching horror movies.

Along with the above, I always watch White Christmas at least once during the season, and Kay and I always watch Nightmare Before Christmas, and since a little small child I’ve always watched How The Grinch Stole Christmas. We make cookies, listen to music and sing along to the carols and for the last two years I’ve been making my own cards and wrapping paper.

For a lot of people it is now the “Most Wonderful Time of the Year”, but for those of us who may be suffering from the withdrawal of Halloween, that feeling is not yet here and so we haven’t gotten into the holiday spirit. Even more so, those of us who don’t fall under the Abrahamic faiths, may be struggling to fit our own beliefs or traditions in a very….established holiday, and so we are also not in the holiday spirit yet. But as it usually goes we eventually start to feel the wonder and magic of the holiday season, and I want to help that along a bit.

In our house (big mixed faith house to boot) we try to do a little something called “Keeping Religion Out of The Family Time”. This is where, when we’re together as a family (whether with my side or Kay’s side) we don’t do anything that leans into religion too heavily. Sure we still open gifts and cards and all that, but we don’t bring faith into our group celebration. Kay and I are Satanists, his side of the family is Catholic and Agnostic. My side of the family is also Christian and Agnostic. So if you couldn’t tell, we’re the odd goats out. So since we spend pretty much all day with our families on December 25th, we keep it toned down, and our families know not to bring up their faith while we’re present. Kee isn’t being brought up in any particular religion, so we don’t want him to be influenced by our families faiths until he’s ready to start exploring that path if he wants, and since we are firm believers that family is truly the reason for the holiday season in our house, we tend to shy away from the overly religious tones that some places really push.

So, in light of that here is how we’re making Hexmas/Creepmas/Anti-Christmas fun and festive and hopefully we can get you a bit closer to feeling the holiday spirit. So I tend to try getting things started in November, this includes starting my holiday shopping, getting my recipes together, planning my card list, etc. I always say I will start shopping early, since when you start in November usually it’s a rush to get things that aren’t overly “Christmas” themed, but I never get the chance or motivation to start (hopefully one day that will change, but it wasn’t this year). On top of that I usually try to get some handmade gifts finished by the end of November, again this year was a little harder since we had two big moves and I don’t have most of my crafting supplies in the house we’re staying at, so probably not a whole lot being handmade this year, but so is life. This year we’re doing an advent calendar, not a religious one, but a cute little gingerbread themed one where you open the little house and a treat is yours for the day. I’m doing mainly non-edible treats since we don’t want Kee to sugared up before he leaves for school and my mother (Grandma Mom) usually gets him a chocolate advent calendar anyway, so I’ll be tucking in cute little stamps, tiny toys, and some little handy things for our boogie boy.

Since we’re staying with my mother and Uncle at the moment we don’t really have a say in how the house is going to be decorated, however we do have our own room and this is where I’m going to really make the space ours for the holidays. I plan on getting some new bedding to really bring in a dark moody winter feel for our room, something in either plain black or maybe even the red and black buffalo check pattern in a comforter set and plain black sheets. With that I’ve decided I’m either making or buying goth-esque throw pillows for the bed to go along with our Jack and Sally squishmallows that live on our bed (yes we’re those types of people), something with a little holiday flare like bat shaped pillows with little Santa hats you can take off. I bought a tiny tree to have at the foot of our bed on the trunk that sits there so I’m trying to figure out how I want to decorate it, it’s 24” so I have a bit of space to work with and I’m not sure of how I want it to look as whatever I choose is going to have gothic undertones, so if I go with a winter woodland theme it’ll also be dark and moody, but if I go with a gingerbread/candy theme I think it would be a little easier trying to incorporate those gothic motifs, we’ll just have to see with that one, since I still have some time before I should really have it up. As for wall decor I want to go to the dollar store and grab a few sets of canvas and do up some seasonal paintings, or even use some holiday papers and make them look dark and delightful. These are just some of the ideas I have, and as they pan out we’ll be posting them on our instagram, so you should drop a follow!

As for putting a little Satanic/Witchy twist on the holidays we as our little three member family unit celebrate Yule, which falls on the Winter Solstice. This is a little more on the Witchy side since Satanism (to my knowledge) doesn’t really have an established Winter Holiday for December, but it stands to say I could be wrong and other branches of Satanism might have a December holiday. So with Yule we do also exchange a small handmade gift, we have a nice little dinner, and we enjoy the short amount of time we get with the Sun, once night falls we light a couple candles and have some time together as a family either reading, watching a movie, doing a craft project that we turn into a spell, or we play some games. It’s very simple and something that many people can do with ease. I love being able to enjoy a holiday and not have a huge amount of stress trying to make it perfect, just being able to spend time together is enough for me in that respect.

When I comes to the Church I belong to (*gasp* the Satanic Witch goes to Church? Well yes, I mean it’s a Satanic Church but still) I have yet to experience what they do, if anything, for the holidays as I just joined earlier this year, but I expect it to be as lovely as the other services/masses have been so far.

(Very late to the game but I thought I would still post this one, read it with the knowledge that this is in past tense)

It’s spooky season y'all!

This year in our neck of the woods it’ll be another pandemic friendly Halloween, which isn’t that much different than our normal Halloween as our kiddo is Autistic, but somethings I want to do to make the day as special as it can be for our little one I’m going to share with you here.

So in our house we don’t do trick or treating due to a number of things but mainly our little darkling is very picky about the treats that are given out and isn’t afraid of handing them back with a polite “No thank you.” (We learned this very early in our adventures of trick or treating).

So let’s get into the fun of what we plan on doing! First up is a Boo-basket, something I saw on pinterest a couple years back and kept forgetting about it, cause honestly how often do we revisit the boards we make on pinterest? Anywho, I have the plan to go this weekend and pick up somethings that I think our kiddo will like, like scented halloween markers, big funny pens and spooky pencils and erasers, stickers, and little notebooks, socks, maybe a set of halloween pajamas (if I can find any in his size), halloween books, and a couple cute little crafty things we can do together, and of course candy that I know he’ll like. Basically you gather all your goodies and arrange them in a basket or halloween bucket and have it waiting the morning off like a fun spooky stocking!

We’ve also planned to have some not so spooky but super fun and cute Halloween movies to watch during the day while we carve our pumpkins and bake seasonal cookies! Movies like Halloweentown, The Addams Family, and Hotel Transylvania to name a few. We’ll also be dressing up, this year is a little blasphemous but still really fun. I'll be going as a creepy nun, my husband as a plague doctor, and our kiddo as a possessed child. Dressing up for Halloween is mainly just for the fun of getting dressed up in our house since we don’t really go out, but our little one still enjoys the heck out of it!

Other ideas we would have loved to have gotten to do this year but sadly time has gotten away from us, and some life things that won’t allow for it to happen this year are: Having an outdoor Halloween carnival type event for our little one and their cousins, with pumpkin ring toss, knock the ghosts, Witches golf, Zombie eyeball races, Halloween egg hunt, and just so many other cute and fun ideas that we could do next year!

It happens every September.

You start getting ready in August (if you're like our family), buying new clothes for the kids, getting school supplies that fit your kids aesthetic and interests, searching pinterest for cute ways to make the day special, plan out school lunches, and work on getting yourself ready for the inevitable day.

The kids start getting more and more excited as the day gets closer, and you, if you're like me, are getting more and more nervous. You have the pre-first day chat about what to do if you are getting picked on, if there is an emergency, etc and all the while your baby is either rolling their eyes or not really paying attention.

Then the day comes, you all wake up early because there is so much excitement and nerves, get a special breakfast made, get ready for the big day, take the pictures, and make your way to the school for morning drop off.

You stand with your baby just a little bit further away from the other parents in their Autumn styled outfits, cute hairstyles, big sunglasses, Starbucks in hand. Than there you are, standing out in your gothic best, also with coffee in hand (cause honestly you've probably been up since 3:30am to make the morning perfect for the kids, so this is definitely your fifth coffee so far), and you get the brief flashback of your own first day of school when you started dressing the way you do, and feeling out of place, and how can you do this to your own child, what if you embarrass them? What if they hate you for this? What if they stop thinking you’re the cool parent?

Don’t worry, you aren’t alone, I get this every year, and on top of that I ugly cry watching my son go into the school, to spend the day with his friends, filling his little brain with knowledge, and having fun during recess and lunch time. In all honesty, he definitely doesn’t care how I dress when I take him to school, whether I’m wearing a full glam goth fit, or my typical “Mom-Goth” uniform with flip-flops and no eyebrows, my son just doesn’t care. I’d love to say at this point “and neither do I.” but I can’t lie to you, I do care, especially when I see the other parents looking put together and normal with their Ugg boots and well cared for eyebrows, but it’s something I’m trying to come to terms with. If Kee doesn’t care, I really shouldn’t either, so long as I like what I have on it doesn’t really matter.

This is something I think most moms and mom adjacent people feel, comparing themselves to the other parents dropping their kids off for school, scoping out to see who’s wearing what, and how it looks and maybe gathering a little cannon fodder for their lunch with their friend group. (Don’t feel bad, we all do it, just try to do better. It’s a flaw of mine too). But I think at the end of the day it’s not a big deal, I honestly don’t think the other parents really care, it’s still rather early in the morning, they may look put together but they’re probably tired AF and not really paying attention to the others around them. So don’t think too much about it, don’t get too caught up in how the other parents perceive you, because really this isn’t about you it’s about your little darkling.

Good Day Friend,

Welcome to "She Walks The Left Hand Path" a little slice of life blog catering to those parents who fancy the darker side of life.

Are you into the Occult? A part of an Alternative lifestyle? Goth? A Metal Head? A Witch? Satanist? Someone who doesn't fit in with the other parenting communities who favour Christmas and Easter over Halloween and Hexennachet? Are you the Parent waiting for your kids at the end of the day that the other parents stare at because you're aesthetic says Gothic Aristocrat or Metal Head Mama?

Brought to you from A Satanist and Witch duo, SWTLHP is your place to not feel so left out, consider them your new bestfriends, the weird couple at the end of the street who always supplies the best treats for the school bake sale, and is always ready to organize the best Halloween party for the neighbourhood.