Posts Tagged ‘history’
Halloween is one of the most popular holidays in the American holiday calendar. Halloween costumes have not always been worn. The origins of Halloween go back thousands of years to the Celtic people of Ireland and Britain. The ancient Celts had a different calendar than the one we use today, and on the Celtic calendar the new year started on November 1. The night before was called Samhain, and it was believed by the Celts that on that night the spirits of the dead would be able to return to the world of living and play tricks on the living. The Celts used to carve gourds, which are small squashes, into scary faces instead of pumpkins. They would put lit candles in the gourds to light them up and scare away the spirits.
Halloween today is a fun holiday full of magic and make-believe. The majority of Americans celebrate Halloween by trick or treating or attending costume parties, giving out treats and watching scary movies. Here are some fun facts about the celebration of Halloween in the US:
1. 38 million children under the age of 13 went trick or treating in 2008. Even though that number wasn’t as high as the number of kids who went trick or treating the year before that is still a lot of kids who did enjoy trick or treating. That number doesn’t include the number of teens and adults who also went trick or treating. You’re never too old to go trick or treating.
2. 93% of households in the US felt that their neighborhoods were safe enough to trick or treat in as of 2008. That number may surprise you, since so many cities and towns now hold supervised trick or treating events at local malls because neighborhood trick or treating is considered to be unsafe. Most of the people surveyed said that they felt very safe taking their kids trick or treating in their own neighborhoods.
3. At last count in 2007 there were more than 110 million occupied homes in the US. That’s a lot of potential candy! Most people think of trick or treating as something that is done from house to house many kids who live in apartments with their parents trick or treat in their apartment buildings where they can get a nice haul of candy without going outside.
4. More than a billion pounds of pumpkins are grown for Halloween – All over the country farmers grow huge pumpkin patches just for Halloween. Since pumpkins are the primary decoration for the entire autumn season, not just for Halloween, they are in high demand from the end of September to the middle of November. Illinois produced the most pumpkins of any state in 2007.
5. In 2007 Americans ate an average of 24 pounds of candy per person – Can you imagine eating 24 pounds of candy? You probably did, but just didn’t realize it since you didn’t eat it all at once. This Halloween after you go trick or treating weigh your treats to see how many pounds of candy you’re eating that are just from Halloween treats.
October is a magical time of year. There is a chill in the air, the leaves have begun their own slow display of fireworks, brightening the sky with vibrant oranges, reds and yellows, and all the Halloween decorations begin to appear. Jack-o-lanterns grin eerily out from the doorsteps, scarecrows stand ominously among bundles of high cornstalks within yards all along the street and as the sun begins to set the shadows come out to play, carrying with them a creepy sense of mischief that inspires laughter and fun.
The Halloween season offers a special kind of joy that is simply not present in other holiday celebrations. While the emphasis may seem to be on scaring the bejeebers out of your friends and neighbors, the real gift of this season comes from the sense of freedom and creativity it entails. Halloween is the only holiday that is based on an open concept rather than a particular event. There are no boundaries, no limits, and no expectations to fulfill. You are free to be as playful and original as you wish.
This aspect of Halloween is one that should be cherished because it affords us the space to be as silly as we want while also nurturing our inventive sides. Parents can encourage their children to choose any character or costume that they would like to be for Halloween, and then spend time helping their child to make the costume they want to wear. Families can also take advantage of the season to bond as a unit by voting on one theme for the entire family, such as the Addams Family or The Incredibles. There is nothing quite like the feeling of belonging to a cohesive group that is easily recognizable in public. It really establishes a fun sense of being part of a team.
Larger projects, such as haunted houses or mazes can also be an excellent event for the whole family to join together in building. Many people use their yards or garages to set up a simple haunted maze that the trick-or-treaters can walk through if they dare. These sometimes take a lot of work, and getting the family and friends involved stimulates a great feeling of comradery among those who worked so hard on it. And the satisfaction derived from the screams and nervous giggles of the people going through the maze is unparalleled.
Some people go to quite elaborate lengths to create an environment that is fun and scary for their neighbors to experience during the season. They spend months designing and building facades or effects that they display in front of or inside their homes just to entertain people with a fun scare. This is a gesture of hospitality like no other, presenting parents and kids alike with an experience that they are unlikely to ever forget. For those who do this, it is an offering of themselves to the guests who will come to their door, a whimsical engagement in the fun and frivolity of the season that represents a genuine interest in joining in the fun and enhancing every person’s Halloween eve. In return, they are gifted with the opportunity to briefly take part in the lives of their neighbors if only for the evening.
There are many neighborhoods in America that actually gather together and decide themes for their entire street during Halloween. Each neighbor then builds a façade or decorates their house in accordance with that theme. These can be extraordinary sites to behold. For instance, one street created an old western theme in which each home had built a different set in front of or surrounding their home, so the whole street looked like something you’d find in an old western movie. Another neighborhood made a pirate themed experience, with a nine foot tall pirate ship that spanned several house lengths. These kinds of things can definitely bring a community together.
Neighborhoods that don’t want to go to such extremes can still benefit from this time of silliness and fun. Parents often work together, within their own neighborhoods as well as the surrounding streets, to create a fun and safe environment in which the children can enjoy trick-or-treating. The adults take turns with street duties, keeping the passing drivers aware of the presence of all the kids in costumes and helping the children to cross the street safely. They accompany the kids as they go door to door so that they can meet or chat with the people on their street with whom they have limited contact otherwise. This is a convenient and non-intrusive way to introduce oneself to the neighbors living on the street, or get to know them better. Communities who know each other tend to be safer in general than those who aren’t acquainted with the people living around them.
There is no denying that Halloween is a wonderful holiday, one that brings people together in unique ways. The freedom of style and expression it offers makes it the one holiday when we can truly share our own individuality with all of those around us while celebrating theirs as well.
The image of a witch dressed in black with a big pointy hat riding a broomstick is an iconic Halloween image. But why are witches so closely associated with Halloween? There are a lot of reasons why the image of the evil witch became associated with Halloween, and most of them are rooted in Middle Age Christianity.
When the Christian Church in the Middle Ages started to take over as the dominant religion throughout Europe the leaders of the Church needed to find a way to get people to stop believing in old Pagan traditions and embrace Christian beliefs. In order to convince people to convert to Christianity they waged a negative public relations war against anything associated with Paganism. One of the things associated with Paganism was the practice of Witchcraft, or manipulating energies and using plants, herbs, and other natural materials to heal disease and to help growth. Usually witchcraft was practiced by women who worked as natural healers and were seen as being very wise and educated. In order to convince people to turn against Paganism the Church began a campaign against witches saying that witches were evil people who worked with the Devil and were using herbal potions and other mixtures to harm people, not to help them. The campaign worked and witches were hunted, tortured, and vilified.
When the Church wanted to stop the celebration of Samhain it used the same tactics that it had used against witches to make the celebration seem evil. Samhain was described by Church elders as the night when witches and the Devil would roam the Earth killing the innocent, stealing souls, and causing havoc. The stereotype of the witch that has come down through the centuries to modern culture developed from various practices and stereotypes throughout the years. The image of a wicked witch that most people have today was derived from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and the Wicked Witch of the West with her long black dress, black pointy hat, green skin, and mole. For many modern people the image of a wicked witch flying through the air on a broom with a pointy hat, black dress, and green skin like Margaret Hamilton in the Wizard of Oz movie is the first thing that comes to mind when they hear the word “witch”.
Witches are almost always ugly because they are evil, and evil is ugly. Unlike the vampire cult in literature and film which makes vampires seem like sympathetic, attractive, misunderstood creatures who still have human feelings and emotions witches are always portrayed as ugly, mean, evil creatures who want to harm humans. Witches will always be associated with Halloween because they are supposed to be minions of the Devil, and Halloween is the Devil’s holiday for some Christian sects. Even though today Halloween is considered a secular holiday when Paganism and Christianity were both fighting for control as the dominant religion in Europe Halloween was a religious holiday. The Church tried to end the holiday by scaring people into not celebrating so that the witches wouldn’t get them but they never quite succeeded. Their image of the witch as an evil force to be reckoned with who flies out on Halloween in search of victims still endures though.