Halloween

Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago, mostly in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1.

This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. SOURCE: History.com

Over the years it transformed itself into wearing costumes, carving pumpkins, festivals, and trick or treat activities.  It is mainly a children's day or evening depending upon which day of the week it falls.

What is interesting to me is that when I was growing up in Alexandria, VA, my parents encouraged us to wear costumes and trick or treat around the neighborhood by outselves as it was a relative safe decade.  However, when I moved to TN in 1990, trick or treating was frowned upon by the Southern Baptists and also discouraged because some candy may have been poisoned.

Halloween is still celebrated and many people still wear costumes to work (only at those companies that allow that sort of nonsense) and some parents drive their children around in cars to collect candy from those people they know.  We are keeping our lights turned off and will buy no candy mainly because of the COST this year.

I would suspect that gradually over the years, the Halloween traditions will soon disappear once our grandchildren begin to have children.

Thanksgiving and Christmas follow Halloween and I wonder what will happen to those traditions in time....  the world has other things to think about than just celebrations.