It’s October so as the leaves begin to turn and the nights grow cooler, Halloween looms large at the end of the month. I remember it as a minor holiday from my childhood. We dressed up – usually in a homemade costume that displayed both creativity and frugality – and went to a few nearby homes to say “Trick or Treat”. We rarely went to anyone’s house unless we knew them and often ended up around the block at Granny’s house, where we took a break and helped pass out candy. If we decorated, it was simple – a carved pumpkin, a ghost made from an old sheet or a black cat cardboard cutout picked up at the grocery store for pennies. The next day was All Saints Day, a church observance and we began our trek toward Thanksgiving.
Somewhere along the way the holiday became much larger with spook houses and parties and horror movies and elaborate lawn decorations and more.
While I may read some horror novels, I’m not into the gory horror movies that are favored by many. This year, Halloween – or All Hallows Eve – falls on Sunday and on Monday morning, I’ll be in church.
The last few years, I haven’t handed out treats to kids at the door and my porch light stays off. It’s not because I’m no fun but because I got tired of parents trick or treating for the three month old baby in their arms who won’t be eating the candy, the carloads or even trailer loads of kids from other neighborhoods or towns who descend like a plague of locusts, and the kids who don’t want whatever candy I’m offering but ask for something else (usually far more expensive) and throw a tantrum when it’s not available.
My children are grown – their trick or treat years long behind them. When they were small, we had fun with it and yes, sometimes I dressed up as well.
In addition to the trend that Halloween is a major holiday and the start of the “holiday season”, there’s another thing that bothers me about the American observance of Halloween. It’s the focus that some Christians have in calling it “the devil’s holiday” or insisting that it’s a pagan feast rooted deep in evil.
First, it’s not the holiday season – not to me. I’m old fashioned but the holidays to me are Christmas and New Year’s Day. I’ll allow Thanksgiving in as well but that’s it.
Second, Halloween comes to us from the ancient Irish Samhain (pronounced sow-in). Samhain was the end of the harvest season and the last day of the old year. The new year began on November 1, ushering in the dark season of winter, a hard time in the ancient world with dark, cold, and sometimes less food.
Samhain is one of the four ancient fire feasts and in the pagan days, fires were lit to observe it.
I have often had a fire myself on Samhain/Halloween, hearkening to the old ways but then I’ve also carved a turnip in the traditional Irish fashion as well as a much larger and easier pumpkin.
On Samhain Eve, October 31, it was believed that the veils between the worlds thinned and that the dead could walk among the living. It was also thought that mischievous spirits, called pucas, might roam about playing a trick or two. Most people stayed inside on Samhain Eve, close to a warm fire and enjoyed feasting and most likely drinking.
There was nothing about the devil or evil as part of it.
When the Catholic Church came along with Christianity, the Irish didn’t want to give up their festival and didn’t. Instead, after the church came up with the idea of making old pagan days into new Christian observances (which includes Christmas, my friends), they began calling Samhain All Hallows Eve.
On All Saints Day, we of the Catholic faith remember all saints and martyrs in a solemn observance in church. We remember the dead too. On November 2, we mark All Souls Day - also known as the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed and the Day of the Dead, is a day of prayer and remembrance for the souls of those who have died, which is observed by Latin Catholics and other Christian denominations annually on November 2. In Mexico, the two-day long Day of the Dead is observed as well.
Halloween as Americans celebrate it is relatively new. There was little mention of it until the early 19th century and my Granny, born in the 1890’s, remembered it only as a night where there might be a wee bit of mischief but no trick or treating.
Halloween has become a time to share ghost stories, to have a little fun, and to dress up.
For some, like me, it’s a time for reflection, the true shift into autumn or winter and a time to remember our dead.
Samhain was the holiday – it never was the name of a “god of the dead” or the devil or anything evil.
Man has created those things which if you think about that, might leave you to wonder why.
I will observe All Hallows Eve in my own way and on November 1, I will go to church to pray for the dead.
That’s it – end of story. Make it what you will but Halloween is not and has never been evil.
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