Halloween is my favorite American holiday. Christmas is great, except we spend too much money. Thanksgiving is about family and food but turkey makes me sleepy. Halloween is for fun, without stress or worry. We may not get the day off from work like the other Big Two holidays, but Halloween does not cost much either. Our investment is in some trick-or-treating candy and perhaps a costume and some holiday decorations. Some people really get into the Halloween spirit and do a great job with their home’s Halloween decoration.
Halloween started as a pagan European holiday to celebrate the end of summer and honor the denizens of the spirit world. For some strange reason, modern America took this holiday to heart and turned it into a big deal. This is odd considering American is essentially a Christian nation. Then again, Christmas is partly a pagan holiday too. It seems paganism has not been completely extinguished from the popular imagination.
However, there are people who frown on Halloween. Some Christians understand the pagan background of Halloween and resist its allure. Others don’t like the scary side of the holiday. An example below is an article from a Chicago Tribune writer who does not like the fact that Halloween celebrates ghoulishness.
“The spirit of the Halloween holiday is exactly what I hate about it.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-talk-halloween-brotmanoct27,0,5937671.column
If anything, I think Halloween has been watered down and made too nice. There was a time long ago when people actually believed in the reality of the Spirit World. The autumn traditions were to celebrate our ancestors and placate the Unseen World. People were in touch with the cycles of nature along with our connection to the spirits.
Now, Halloween is a joke! The scary aspects of nature and the spirits have been reduced to cartoons. This can be summed up with breakfast cereals using cuddly monsters on them (Count Chocula, Franken Berry and Boo Berry). The mighty faeries of the past became Disney characters. There are still some scary parts to Halloween which evokes the dangers of the spirit world, but just as commercialism has watered down the meaning of Christmas, so it has with Halloween.
Yet the spirit of Halloween still endures. One example is the Wiccan celebration of Samhain. I want to wish my Wiccan and pagan friends a wonderful Samhain! And everybody else, have a fun Halloween. This year Halloween is on a Saturday, so party on…Happy Halloween!
October 28th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
I’m not sure why getting in touch with the spirit side of things is supposed to be scary. I’m not sure I’d say Halloween was too watered down so much as I’d note that it’s far too commercial, but that’s true of the holidays in general.
Halloween is not only my favorite holiday, it’s my anniversary.
October 28th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
Stephanie, happy anniversary! Halloween is an unusual day to get married, for sure. As for watering down Halloween, I say that half tongue-in-cheek, since it was never really a serious holiday to begin with. But for some it is a sacred time. The actual folklore and meaning behind the holiday is fascinating, but most people have only a vague idea there is more to Halloween then trick-or-treat. Except for the serious Christians who understand Halloween and don’t like it at all.
October 29th, 2009 at 1:20 am
I like the fact that, even as commercial as it’s become, it’s also an opportunity for whimsy and imagination. Which is probably why some Christians have such heartburn with it.