Halloween, Whats so great about it?

Tonight's subject is intended for fun and more trivial facts that you can bore your friends with. We celebrate Halloween in the United States every October 31st. On this day, people dress up in costumes, have parties and go trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. We all hear about witches, ghosts and goblins and listen to very scary stories about ghosts and hauntings. We may even go to a "Haunted House" to get frightened by things that go bump in the dark.

The big question here is, Halloween, what is so great about it? For some, Halloween is the highlight of their year. Some people will get married on October 31 because it is Halloween. OK, so what is so great about it? What are the origins and why do we still celebrate?

Depending on where you look or who you talk to, Halloween either originated with the Christian tradition of celebrating the lives of Christian martyrs or, Halloween originated with the Celtic people of pre-medieval Europe. The word "Halloween" has its origins in the Catholic Church. The word comes from a contracted corruption of All Hallows Eve, All Hallows Day or All Saints Day. Pope Boniface IV established May 13, 609 AD as a day of celebratory remembrance for all the Church's martyrs. Pope Gregory III later changed the date of remembrance to November 1, when he dedicated the chapel in St. Peter's Basilica to "all saints", hence November 1 became All Saints Day.

If you opt for Halloween originating from Celtic tradition, the Celts divided their year into halves: the "light half" and the "dark half". The "light half" covered basically Spring and Summer, when the days were longer, and the "dark half" covered Autumn and Winter, when the days were shorter. The Celts celebrated the end of the light half of the year with a festival of "Samhain" which became a fixed date in the Julian calendar of November 1st. The name Samhain is derived from Old Irish and means roughly "summer's end". This time of year was the Celtic New Year.

One belief is that on the last day of the Celtic year, the disembodied spirits of all those who had died throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to possess for the next year. They believed this was their only hope for afterlife. Since the living did not want to be possessed by the dead, on the night of October 31st, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes (making the homes cold and undesirable) and then they would dress up in all types of ghoulish costumes and parade around the neighborhood, possibly trying to frighten away the spirits looking to posses them. The custom of Halloween was brought to America by the 1840's by Irish immigrants fleeing Ireland due to the potato famine.

The custom of trick-or-treating may have had it origins from the medieval practice of souling, when poor people would go door to door, receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day. Currently, Trick-or-Treating may carry an implied threat that if the children do not receive "Treats" (candy), they would perform a "trick" or some kind of mischief to the homeowner or on the home owner's property. The practice of Trick-or-treating does not appear to have become very popular until the 1930's.

Halloween costumes traditionally are of ghosts, witches, ghouls, goblins, or skeletons - basically supernatural figures. Over time, the types of costumes extended to include popular fictional and real characters, or the alter-ego of the person creating the costume. Modern costumes worn by today's trick-or-treaters are now intended for entertainment and amusement. Sometimes they scare neighbors and often compete with others for the most original, scary, ugly, funny, or pretty costume.

Overall, Halloween is a time that reconfirms the social bond of a neighborhood (because you walk from door to door visiting your neighbors) and allows you to interact with strangers which you may not have opted to do on a "normal" day. The real value in Halloween comes not necessarily from winning a costume contest, but from interchange with strangers and neighbors, thus exorcising our fear of strangers, and reaffirms our social bonds with the people in our neighborhood. This time of year may be the only time we actually go around and talk to all of our neighbors.

So, enjoy your Halloween evening and have fun reconnecting and possibly frightening people this Halloween.

Until tomorrow...