Just a few days until Halloween

 It’s only a few days before Halloween, and as I contemplate what the season means to me, I’m glad I grew up with friends and family that were big about celebrating Halloween. Carved pumpkins every year, trick-or-treating, then sorting the candy at home - depending on how cold it had been that year, probably with hot chocolate and maybe some late night horror movies. Even when I was 16 and my best friend and I swore we were too old to trick-or-treat and spent the night passing out candy, we couldn’t help grabbing some pillow cases and doing a quick run around the neighborhood afterward. It wasn’t a lot - but we DID get candy… and so did her brother who, in a fit of trying to be mature, had also sworn off Halloween that year.

I always felt bad for my friends at school who had to stay home that night. Their families, typically for religious reasons, kept them home. For them - or at least their parents - this was a time to hide inside with the lights off on the front porch to discourage trick-or-treaters. They didn’t even pass out candy. They were told it was a time of devil worship, that people ran rampant in the streets with demons, and that someone would poison them or hurt them. I remember a kid telling me that his mom had taught him that by dressing up in a scary costume, he'd be inviting demons to posses him. I don't know if that was true or not, but I know lots of families view Halloween with a wary eye, casting it at its best as a time for drunks and vandals, and at its worst, a night of evil.

pictured: a Satan-worshiper in the making.

At the very least, many kids I grew up with were told it was anti-Christian.

But we kids all new better: this holiday had nothing to do with what you believed in, at least when you’re a child. It was about being scared for fun, about dressing up as anything you wanted to be, running from door to door and demanding free candy from strangers… and then getting it.
For the kids that couldn’t gather it themselves, it wasn’t unusual for a few of us who did to share our haul the next school day.


Halloween - the day, the season - has been warped from a solemn celebration of life and death to a time of fear and paranoia, perverted with consumerism, and demonized by scared parental concern groups.
I’m disappointed with how things are these days in my area - Halloween is so maligned, kids have to be in by Seven or so, well before it’s very dark - and that’s with parent supervision. People aren’t supposed to pass out candy after curfew. Police drive up and down neighborhoods after it’s dark, sending stragglers home.

Being outside the Detroit area, ‘Devil’s night’ has been a problem for years - the night before Halloween, pranks abound and property damage is at a high. A small number of jerks have fun at the expense of others, and ruin the holiday for everyone else, and attacks range from small assaults to house fires.

Pictured: Guide lights for the dead

And though you see decorations and candy on sale for Halloween around the beginning of September, I feel a surge of irritation every year when I see the Christmas decorations going on sale earlier and earlier. Two years ago, on the day of Halloween, they were putting all the black and orange away to make room for snowmen. Last year, it was a week before - this year I was seeing green, red and white on the shelves by the middle of September.

I have no problem with Christmas - it’s one of my favorite times of year. But I hate that the commercial aspects of it overlap so much with other holidays. But I’m rambling.

Now that I’m older, I have learned a lot about where Halloween comes from - and what a combination of sources! The Mexican Day of the Dead, the pagan concept of Samhain (Sow-en), the Celtic New Year, the Catholic All-saint‘s-day - all of these combined on the American shores as they were carried here by various immigrants, and created a completely unique and wonderful celebration. None of these holidays could really be described as “anti-Christian.” In fact, most of what this holiday is about - regardless of where it is celebrated - is about remembering those who have gone before us. Yes, this does translate to ancestor-worship in some areas, which is not a Christian practice (though somehow honoring dead saints is okay). Every tradition associated with Halloween can be traced back to one of it’s many multi-cultural roots - from it jack-o-lanterns starting out as carved turnip lanterns for a lost soul, to dressing up, to putting lights up on the front porch to encourage visitors - a throwback to bonfires lit to scare off evil spirits and guide home friendly ones on the night that the veil between worlds is the thinnest.

I look forward to this Halloween - I have an ancestor altar set up for the evening, and will be celebrating from sun up this Halloween to dawn of November 1st. And though I don’t trick or treat any more, I will still attend a big to-do - where dancing, lights, candy and drinks abound. Then when the night is over, I’ll with my friends, the man I love, and we’ll all end the event together. I’m sure that eventually kids will have to be in by five, home in time for dinner: that handing out candy will somehow be considered wrong: that parents fearing their kids getting hurt having fun won’t bother with the costumes or the decorations.

But there is hope, for this greatly misunderstood holiday. Though trick-or-treating may not be as widespread in my area as it used to be, there are still parties for friends and family - and though vandals will always find a reason to cause trouble, responsible parents and volunteers work to make "Angels night" a rousing success every year, patrolling the streets to keep an eye out for the safety of gleeful costumed children all over the city.

No matter what is said about this season, If/when I have children of my own, or any of my friend’s have children, there will always be the smell of burning leaves and fake fog: costumes and candy: carving pumpkins and spending time with the family at the end of the night, glad for those who have gone before us, and looking ahead to the winter season: there will always be Halloween.

I won’t allow anything else.


Though it's a few days early, Happy Halloween to all my readers - I'll be post again after the holiday.