It’s the night of Halloween and I’m sitting in my sister Cassandra’s living room with her husband and her friend Jennie rehashing stories of Halloween’s past. All the while giving out candy to the hordes of kids ringing the doorbell shouting Trick or Treat! Halloween is a magical time at my sister’s house. Her front yard is decorated with a lean to scare, some years more scary then others. This year is a somewhat mild alien invasion.

Halloween is thick in my sister’s blood and may very well be her favorite day of the year. She’s a costumer by trade. You see growing up Halloween was a sacred night full of rituals in our home; we all have it in our blood. Our Mother was the Halloween ritual leader, planning, plotting and staging the blessed event. She would guide us as we agonized over what we wanted to be for Halloween. I say, “be” because we were truly transformed by her sewing night after night perfecting our guises.

As the holy day dawned we solemnly dressed working to hide our excitement and made our way to school. Mother would begin the preparation of the yard. Yes, not only were we costumed, our front yard was transformed into the spooky entrance to a terrible witch’s lair. Skelton’s, spider webs, spiders, monsters, black cats, you name it we had it all lining the walkway toward the witch and candy.

And a scary witch she was. There were children that refused to go near her she was so scary. On the porch she sat  surrounded by creepy, crawly hanging things. Black material shrouded the front door. The album titled chilling, thrilling sounds of the haunted house played screams, groans, screeching cats, crushing bones, shipwrecks, and explosions over and over.

As Mom took her place on the porch, she would remove her front tooth, yes that’s right her front tooth, and sit behind a caldron filled with dry ice, cackling, teasing and scaring all the kids to come and get the candy. She was really good at it.

And we kids were busy gathering our treats, away from the scary house, traveling around the neighborhood trick or treating with our bodyguard, our Dad. He was always dressed the in same getup, year after year, a large Mexican sombrero and a serape over his shoulder. Ready to protect us come what may. The memories and our love for this hallow day will never go away. We enjoy dressing up. 
 
If you have read any of my blogs you’ll know I like to know from where these traditions we hold sacred and dear come from. Research says that originally what we know as Halloween began as the ancient Celtic community festival Samhain (saw-wen or sow-en). The Celtic’s celebrated November 1 New Year and it was thought that the night before the New Year the veil that separated the physical and the spiritual worlds was at it’s most thin. So the people would light bonfires and wear costumes to confuse and ward off roaming ghosts.

It was also believed that during this time of Samhain faeries traveled around dressed as beggars asking for food going from door to door. People that gave food to the beggars/faeries were rewarded by the faeries and those that didn’t give food were punished. This maybe the beginnings of the trick or treat custom. Now how many of you have tricked a few people when the treats were puny, eh? 

The Romans also had festivals they celebrated at the same time of the Celtic Samhain. One honored the dead and the other honored Pomona the goddess of trees and fruit whose symbol is an apple. I think you know where I’m going with this, which may explain the candied apples and bobbing for apples games we now have.

Then the Christian church came along and didn’t like festival’s with Pagan roots so they changed things up in the eighth century when November 1 was declared All Saints’ Day, a time to honor all dead saints and martyrs. All Saints Day was also known as All Hallows, or All Hallowmas Old English for All Saints Day. The festivals were celebrated simultaneously for hundreds of years.

Then there’s a long Irish story about "Stingy Jack", who was a swindler and a drunk. Jack and the Devil made several bargains until the time Jack died and couldn't get into heaven or hell so the Devil took pity on Jack and gave him a hollowed out turnip with an ember to light his way in the dark. The Jack o'lantern.

And then there is the Guy Fawkes story. In the 1500's, Martin Luther created the Protestant Church, which had no saints, so no All Hallows Day was allowed. Fawkes belonged to a extremist Catholic organization that wanted to remove the Protestant King James. They used a lot of force and well things went badly for Guy. On November 5, 1606, Guy Fawkes was executed for attempting to blow up England's Parliament and his gang changed All Hallows Day to Guy Fawkes Day.

Anyway in the USA the colonies were mostly Protestant and Halloween was considered mostly a Catholic, Episcopalian, and Pagan festival so it didn’t really catch on until mid 1800's, immigration into the New World. These “play parties” were again focused on community celebrations and well it’s the second largest commercial holiday in America, now.

Well I must admit I have missed some years of dressing up for Halloween, but not my sister. And this Halloween I’m in LA attending Mickey’s Halloween Party in Disneyland. It was Friday and the four of us designed our costumes to tell a story, a storybook story. We were steam punk fairytale characters. Cassandra Little Red Riding hood, Scott the Big Bad Wolf, Jennie Goldilocks and me the Mad Hatter. Happy Halloween, HA HA HA HA.

Blessing to all, in joy Candace
PS, Just found photo of my Mother at my sisters place, still scary!!!!  

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