Happy Halloween!

To the children of the United States, Halloween means trick-or-treating, carving pumpkins, and dressing in costume. To the older teenagers it may mean mischief and pranks. However, Halloween began as an ancient Celtic harvest festival called Samhain. They honored the lord of the dead on the first day of winter. It was considered a day out of time because it was between seasons. It was said that the dead walked among the living because the veils between past, present, and future were lifted. Bonfires were held to defeat darkness with light. At every important religious festival, sacred fires were kindled. Poor celebrants would also go house to house to receive food, "soul cakes," from the rich in exchange for their prayers. At the end of the festival, people wore masks and costumes to escort the spirits of the dead of the past year out of town. Druids believed ghosts, fairies, spirits, elves, and witches appeared to harm people. They also believed that Samhain was a time when they could reach the dead for guidance and inspiration. Cats were sacred because they had been humans who were changed into cats as punishment for evil deeds.

In the ninth century, the Catholic Church reserved November 1st to honor all the saints that did not have their own day. This became known as All Saints' Day or All Hallows' Day (hallow meaning to sanctify), and the night before was called All Hallows' Eve or Halloween. Every religious holiday started at sunset the night before. However, Catholics recast the priests and priestesses of the old religion (Wicca or witches) as evil and ugly. The devil was the old horned god. They kept with the same idea of wearing masks or costumes to frighten the spirits of the dead. They gathered together for safety, bobbed for apples, and told ghost stories.

The jack-o'-lantern as a symbol of Halloween was given to us by the Irish. The story goes that while alive, a fellow named Jack spent most of his life playing tricks on the devil. When he died, heaven did not want him because he had spent so much time with the devil, and hell would not take him because the devil was angry about being tricked. As consolation, the devil threw him a lighted coal from hell. Jack stuck the lighted coal into a turnip he had been eating and used it to light his path so he could find a final resting-place. The Irish began to carve turnips and illuminate them with candles to ward off evil. When the Irish brought the customs to America in the 1840's, they found that pumpkins made better carvings.

The poor in Ireland approached rich homes in costumes demanding food for protection. If they were given no food, a prank was played. This started trick-or-treat. In the 1960's, UNICEF encouraged trick-or-treating to keep kids from being destructive. People were also asked to go door to door asking for donations to UNICEF.

There are quite a lot of Halloween superstitions. For example, the ancients Celts believed that knocking on wood (especially oak) would make evil go away. Children born with teeth would grow up to be vampires. A black cat crossing your path will bring bad luck. Ringing a bell will scare away evil spirits. You can see and converse with the spirits if you were born on Halloween, and if a person dies on Halloween, he or she will be the most active ghost constantly going back and forth between the spirit world and this one.

Don't you just love Halloween? All those spooky stories and costumes? Trick or Treating is still one of my favorite things; I'm just handing out the candy now instead of asking for it.

In 1997, Chuck got his first look at pumpking guts. He was born too late in 1996 - I had already carved it. As you can see, he did NOT like it. He cried whenever my sister Bambi tried to stick his hand inside the pumpkin. It's like he was scared of it.

And here are the pumpkins I carved in 1997. The smaller one is a cat - look close, you'll see it. If you watch the Rugrats, you may recognize the bigger one as Chucky. Yes, that is who I named my son after. I think I did a pretty good job.

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