I purchased several bags of candy today. It’s not that we particularly expect Trick-or-Treaters at the funeral home, but you never know. One must always be prepared for Halloween.
The roots of our present day Halloween were planted thousands of years ago with Roman festivals, Celtic harvest celebrations and The Catholic Church’s commemoration of the dead. Customs and traditions around harvest time varied throughout Europe. Then, the people of the colonies eventually began to celebrate the harvest, but it took quite some time for the Protestant powers to welcome the practices. At first, they started holding “play parties” which were public parties with food, music, dancing, fortune telling, and ghost stories. Small acts of mischief also began to occur around this time. By the middle of the nineteenth century fall festivals were held all across the country, but it was still not yet called Halloween.
European immigrants continued streaming into America and it is believed that the potato famine of 1846, which brought a flood of Irish to the states, gave Halloween the jolt it needed to live in the states. Irish and English traditions mixed and melded and soon people began wearing costumes and going from house to house asking for food and money around the harvest. Still, people continued to believe that around the 31st of October was an ideal time to make predictions and so young women would play divination games with yarn, apples and mirrors – often to determine who would be their future husband.
By the late 1800s there was an effort to wipe away the superstitious and supernatural aspects of the holiday. The media and community members tried to make the day more about families, parties and children than religion or the dead. By the 1930s the day became practically secular. Community parties, parades, and school celebrations took over the day. The 1950s turned the day into a family-focused holiday, and due to the surge of children after the baby boomers Trick-or-Treating was revived as it was seen as a community activity.
So, have the ghosts really been pushed away? Has the mischief really been erased? How do you celebrate Halloween today? What traditions remain? What superstitions remain?
More soon.
-Gravedigger
