So...guess who is in charge of the Samhain ritual for my group this year?
Eeep! It's me!
I'm in the same boat you are. I'm acting High Priestess in an Open Ritual and I've never run a Samhain ritual before. We are also not opening the west gate (we will do that in our coven ritual) and we can not have any type of fire (other then candles) where we are holding it at.
So We are doing two things to honor our ancesters. We are doing everyone light a candle for their loved ones and then we are doing a ribbon type of "spell" while doing some chants as a personal rememberance for our loved ones that have passed