I think it’s funny that people get worked up about a “holiday” that celebrates with dressing up in costumes, and traditionally going out to your neighborhood and asking for candy from neighbors.
It makes me wonder where it all came from. Hmmmm.
There is a storied past in European countries for the celebration of Halloween, but it was extremely limited in colonial New England because of the rigid Protestant belief systems there.
As the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups and Native Americans meshed, a distinct American version of Halloween began to emerge. The first celebrations included “play parties,” which were public events held to celebrate the harvest. Neighbors would share stories and tell each other’s futures, dance and sing.
Did you know? More people are buying costumes for their pets. Americans spent some $700 million on costumes for their pets in 2023—more than three times what they spent in 2010. Wow! now that cracks me up!
Colonial Halloween festivities also featured the telling of ghost stories. By the middle of the 19th century, annual autumn festivals were common, but Halloween was not yet celebrated everywhere in the country. But in the second half of the 19th century, America was flooded with new immigrants. These new immigrants from European countries helped popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally.
But what about the whole going house to house and getting candy? I mean, isn’t that the point?
Borrowing from European traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food, a practice that eventually became today’s “trick-or-treat” tradition. In the late 1800s, Halloween was turned into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers than about ghosts and pranks. And at the turn of the century, Halloween parties for both children and adults became the common way to celebrate the day. By the beginning of the 20th century, Halloween had lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones.
Now, people use it as an excuse to go out and party. If you talk to any nurse, or hospital worker, or EMT, you will find that October 31 is the busiest day for intoxication, disorderly conduct, broken bones, and car accidents. An interesting way to celebrate, I think.
And I am not saying I never had any fun on Halloween eve. I remember distinctly on an October 31st in my first year at St. Paul Bible College, (which was not in St. Paul at this time, but in St. Bonifacius) my roommates and I went to a cemetery and played hide and seek with a bunch of people from school. I suppose that is tame, but also probably not so respectful of the people laid to rest there, or their families.
For myself growing up we just never made a big fuss about the “holiday”, and we never did with our kids either. I mean we would go in our neighborhood and “trick or treat” or take them in their custom Mom-sewn costumes to see their grandparents, but otherwise, not a big day in our house.
I think as humans, we get way over worried, anxious, concerned about what everyone is doing about a holiday – but then we don’t seem to get as worried, anxious, or concerned about everyone’s eternity.
I mean Halloween is a man-made thing – eternity, however, is the rest of time, the whole of time itself. And considering where you are going to spend that time, seems much more reason for concern for me.
Let’s consider what’s important before we go off on someone about what they do for a “holiday” and judge them on their actions.
What are our actions when we find out they are not going to heaven? Are we concerned?
Peace,
PTV
(history info on Halloween provided by: The History Channel)