Happy Halloween!
I write this as I sit here in a purple pimp costume, stuffing faar too much sugar down my throat.
Halloween is usually my favorite holiday of them all. For some reason I just feel like a kid again every year around this time. I carve a jack'o'lantern, try and fine SOME reason to put on a costume, and act like I'm seven for awhile. I think Halloween is what I miss most about being a kid.
This year the decorations were a little more annoying to put up, the planning was done half-arsed and at the last minute, and it seemed like a bit of a headache. I didn't catch the spirit until about four days ago when I had a discussion with my wife on the nature of Halloween.
When I get kids I would like to have the knowhow and time to work with them to build a true haunted house, putting up smoke machines and animated spooks and paper mache ghosts and skeletons. My wife is not thrilled about this idea. She said we shouldn't bother with that much fuss and expense over a holiday based upon the devil. I thought she was joking to begin with, but she was dead serious. Since that time, I have heard at least three other people mention that Halloween was a Satanic holiday, and so I decided to dust off my soapbox once again.
Friends, this is just not true. I certainly don't know all there is to know about Halloween, but allow me to elaborate on what I do know.
Open your history books to page....*ahem*....anyway....
About 2,000 years ago, the Celts (not the Celtics...they are from Boston) had a holiday called Samhain (pronounced Sa-win). Named after the Celt god of death, Samhain fell on October 31 to mark the end of the autumn season and the beginning of winter. It was known as the Day of the Dead (again, not Dawn of the Dead). People would light fires, carve scary faces on turnips and gourds and dress in costume in order to scare away the ghosts and goblins running about. When the Romans first conquered the Celts in the first century A.D., they added parts of two of their own festivals: Feralia, a festival held to honour the dead, and Poloma, named after the Roman Goddess of fruit and trees.
Now, the Catholic Church, angered by these pagan practices, wanted to eliminate Samhain. Pope Gregory declared a new religious festival called All Saint's Day, designed to honor all the Saints who did not have their own holiday. As part of the custom of All Saints Day, people would dress up in a costume that represented a saint, and young men would go door-to-door begging for food to feed the town's poor. A few hundred years later, the date was changed so that it would fall on November 1st.
As time passed, the customs of Samhain and All Saint's Day began to merge. The mass said on All Saint's Day was known as Allhallowmass and the day became known as All Hallow's Day, and the 31st was known as All Hallow's Eve.
The Irish population that immigrated to America brought with them the customs of All Hallow's Day, and these customs themselves combined with an American harvest festival called Autum's Play. All Hallow's Eve became more of a time to play than a religious holiday, and the name was eventually shortened to Halloween.
Halloween is a time to be scared, both to remember that we don't always know what is going on in the world, as well as a time to play, to be a kid, to scare others and laugh in excitement and fright. It's a time to eat too much candy and stay up too late, and have one last bash before winter comes. It's also a time to remember the traditions of those who came before us, be they Christian, Celt, Roman or Colonial American.
I am a confirmed Lutheran, and though my faith sometimes waivers, I consider myself to believe in God, and I also firmly believe this holiday has as much to do with the Devil as my netherregions have to do with a donkey (get it? because they're both called a....*ahem*. sorry kids).
I hope anyone who reads this finds it enlightening. I don't get up on the soapbox just to whine, I try and educate and have an actual point before I write anything down here. Any additional comments or knowledge about Halloween or the festivals behind it are welcome in the comment section. Any views of "Halloween is the Devil's Night!!" are also welcome. That's when I can just get insulting. Belive me, getting insulted by a man in purple pajamas is a unique experience.
Later.
9 Comments:
I can hardly wait for the "christmas is not a over commercialized and marketed holiday" blog...it will be like opening a present on christmas day!!
CW
Well, What do I say to that soap box dusting. To honor myself, I do have to say that I once upon a time had the facts and knowledge to back up my opinions of this particular holiday. I got it from church, so go and learn a little!
Pete
Ladies and gentleman...my wife. :)
Becuase she controls where I sleep tonight and she was such a good sport at letting me use her thoughts in my essay, I'm not going to get insulting.
The view that Halloween is Satanic is not due to ignorance, just miseducation. The Christain church means well, but has in the past had a tendency to label all non-Christian gods as aspects of the Devil. True, the holiday was originally based upon the Celtic God of Death, but I'm afraid this holiday was around loooong before the Celts even knew what the Devil WAS.
Not trying to make enemies here...just trying to educate people on the hodgepodge of what this holiday came from. And convince my wife what a nut I am for this holiday. :)
I was only generous enough to let him use my thoughts because he told me after the fact.
ladies and Gentlemen: This is my Husband
Ahh yes....well there was that part....
*blush*
My lovely and long-suffering wife was not the only one that believed Halloween was a Satanic holiday though...not by a long shot. One person having an opinion is not enough for me to get the soapbox out. I'm not trying to declare war on the church either, just point out a few facts.
Regardless of the facts....it still remains. Your look stylish as a pimp daddy.
Not Pete
That I do....that I do. ;-)
Hi,
was doing a search on the Celtic Gods of Death when I found your blog.
Not wanting to start an arguemnt but there was no God of Death in the celtic diety list, there was a Goddess,
Morrigan
Goddess of War, Life & Death she was also the Triple Goddess, maid, matron, crone. the BattleCrow.
Samhaim, or Samhain derived from a celtic word for the month we know as November, which mean the ninth month .
I was then derived to a pagan celebration of the harvest, kind of like the American Thanksgiving.
And since this was a pagan celebration had to be done away with when the Christian converted them. lol, so they stole the holiday, call it All Saints to delebrate all the Saints That had no holidays.
The costumes original were used to frighten of the spirits of the dead.
As were the jackoflanterns. No where in this was there any worshiping of the Devil. In fact it was really a celebration of life. "We have survived another year!"
Oh, easter with its bunny rabbits and ester eggs, that was a fertility celebration of the pagns, isn't it strange that its also the resurrection of Christ. Reborn, just like the pagan was?>
Morrigan
Goddess of War, Life & Death was the only Celtic Diety associated with death, Samhain was a celtic word for the month we know as November which meant the ninth month. Yes, people, Oct is the eight, Nov is the ninth, and Dec is the tenth month of the year at that time, March was the first month of the year. The beginning!
LOL, Samhain later became the name of the festival celebrated by the celts, a celebration of life over death, "We Have Survived Another Year!" the harvest is in, we have food to get us through winter. Lets have fun!
It was not to worship the devil, or death, by the way, the Devil has nothing to do with death, The Angel of Death is sent by god.
So in the christians belief God is the god of death. LOL
The same mistake can be found in other relions, SHIVA is not the god of death in the Hindu religon, he is the GOD of Destruction. the Maker of Worlds.
Now easter was mentioned somewhere.
Easter bunny rabbits and easter eggs are all part of the Pagan celebration of re-birth, new life, ferility, ain't it strange that Christ resurection is celebrated at the same time? I mean Re-birth in to opposing relibion at the same time, God does has a sense of humor, or she does.
or it does.
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