Halloween - How Did It Come to Be?

Halloween has become a fun and extremely imaginative time, not only for children but some adults as well. People who are well into the fantasy of the holiday, like to go all out with the costumes, have some of the most extensive little “Villages” ever, and the outdoor decorations are just phenomenal. So, where did this all come from?

There seems to be no clear event that brought about this particular holiday. One of the stories is that, dating back to 5 B.C., some people, the Celts, from Europe and the Roman Empire, believe that souls of the dead came to visit on the last day of October, and this idea seemed to spread worldwide. Food was left at their doors to encourage the good “spirits” and they wore masks to ward off the bad ones. Other traditions were further created to honor the end of harvest season,  and to honor the dead.

Many centuries later the Roman Catholic Church, attempting to do away with pagan holidays and established November 1^st as All Saints Day to honor all the dead who did not have their own “holy day”. Over the years, traditions to the eve of “All Saints Day” continued to change until the 1840’s when Irish Immigrants entered the USA where Halloween found its way to us and continued to flourish from there.

Halloween comes from "All Hallows' Evening," or in the slang "All Hallows Even", the eve of All Saints Day. "Hallow" is an Old English word for "holy person," and All Hallows' Day is just another name for All Saints' Day which eventually became abbreviated to Halloween. It is believed the Christian practice of celebrating a holiday from the previous evening, such as Christmas Eve and New Years Eve, came from Jewish traditions, celebrating from sundown of one day to sundown of the following day in honor of that holiday.

The “Celts” are now what is known as people from Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales and parts of France. The Halloween traditions go back to the Celts in the 800 BC when weather continued to grow colder and the final harvest of the season called Samhain was the Celtic New Year or "end of summer”. This usually happened around the end of October. Many of the activities of the Samhain festivals were related to these beliefs. Many of those practices of sacrificing animals, harvesting fruits and vegetables then evolved into the modern day Halloween traditions, treats as we now know them.

So how did we come up with dressing up in costumes? That also comes from other legends that a priest was walking along on “Hallow’s Eve”, saw a bonfire from afar on a hill where he seemed to see people dancing around in costumes, with shafts and torches in their hands. With the fires ablaze to the backdrop of the moon, it gave the impression of people flying in the air (the birth of the myth of witches flying on broomsticks) on Halloween.

Again, during Celtic times, it is believed that “fairies” on the eve of Samhain would go door to door asking for food. Those who gave it were rewarded somehow and those who did not were subject to unpleasantness. In medieval times there was also another tradition called “souling” where children would go door to door asking for “soul cakes” at which time the child would pray for the dead relatives of the person who gave it to them. This is when the song came along, “Trick or Treat . . . Give me something good to eat.”

There are so many different aspects of these beliefs and we may never know the true meaning of how and why this holiday came to be but all we know is that our children love the aspects of make believe at this time of year. The unfortunate reality is that there are so many mean people who actually want to harm our children and create an unsafe celebration for them.

People these days, through all the horrifying movies and costumes, have gone way beyond the beliefs and the true fun of Halloween . . . and the unfortunate reality is that so many of these movies are actually showing some bad people how to go about doing horrible things to good people.

Halloween is supposed to be fun, little ghosts, goblins and witches, going around looking for treats. Let our children go about enjoying the holiday, as we did many years ago, safely, though we now have to monitor what our children do receive to be sure it is all good and safe for them. But for the safety of those we love, it is better to be safe than sorry. Happy Halloween.