All Saints' and All Souls'

Some Beaker Folk have been getting rather confused about the up-coming Saints Super Sunday. So here's the running order.

We regard those Beaker Folk who have day jobs as a special group. Obviously their lack of commitment to the activities of the fellowship is to be regretted, and we do our best to ensure they feel guilty, as clearly they are letting us down. But on the other hand they are our main source of income so we can't get them too seriously disillusioned or they might go somewhere more reasonable. So because they would miss the All Saints' Day festivities we have moved All Saints to the morning of Sunday 31 October.

Come dressed as your favourite saint. Although anyone coming as St Lucy this year is requested not to be too realistic. A few people passed out last year.

After the All Saints' celebration on Sunday morning, we move on to the All Souls remembrance in the afternoon. It's a strange, Catholic kind of observance, and really dependent on a belief in Purgatory as far as I can tell - which makes it ironic that so many of our community don't really seem to believe in everything at all. But hey, they have loved ones that they miss, so it goes down well. One tea light per lost relative or pet is the rule, and if you want to commemorate more there's plenty of web sites you can use.

We've got to whip through the All Souls Solemn Remembrance pretty quick, ready for the Halloween party. Now, I know that Halloween is technically the Eve of All Hallows, which we'll have celebrated in the morning. And I realise that in temporal terms we are, strictly speaking, mucking about. But it wouldn't be right to move Halloween to the day before, would it? That would make it Halloweeneen - and what sort of numpty would move an important festival to the wrong day?

So there we have it. I hope it all makes sense. I realise you may feel like we're rushing through this period of great festivity, but if we don't how are we going to clear the decks for getting the Christmas lights up on Monday?