Is your Halloween costume laid out on your bed, wrinkle-free and glorious? Pumpkin carved, candy bought, house decorated. Here I sit with half a costume and a full serving of cynicism. This go around, my Halloween musings keep returning to Ray Bradbury's novel "The Halloween Tree." Oh you don't know?! Well now you know:
On a journey to save their friend from certain death by a mysterious force, eight boys travel across space and time with the help of an equally mysterious man, learning the origins of Halloween along their travels.
Origins, history, tradition. Americans are so conditioned with traditions reinforced by retail stores and the media, we forget, or never knew, how major holidays came to be. Or, more likely, we get the gist with no want to delve further. We weren't alive then, so let's move on, right? You shouldn't live in the past and, according to Col. Jessup, you can't handle the truth!
Anyway, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Valentine's Day, Fourth of July ... we focus on food, merchandise and clothing. We must prepare for parties, boozing and b.s. We don't reinforce the roots of holidays to our children or friends and, more often than not, don't mention the historical significance as we get down on our knees and worship Santa, over-eating and fireworks. We're breeding a race of idiots.
Halloween has Celtic influences: feasts, rituals, festivals of the dead, and preparing for winter. They called it the Festival of Samhain. That night, souls were said to visit their former homes ... creepy, right? So, during feasts places for these souls were set at the table as a welcome invitation. People donned disguises to conceal themselves from the not-so-nice souls and fairies who returned. Not all souls are Casper the Friendly Ghost because some have unfinished business. People trick-or-treated, more or less, but for food for the festivals, not candy to feed their fat faces. Jack-o-lanterns were turnips carved to represent the souls and fairies or, sometimes, for used for protection.
So, instead of some goofy carving, how about carving an image of a dead relative ... pretty eerie when lit by candlelight.
Halloween has Christian influences: honoring saints and praying for the recently departed who still climb the stairway to Heaven. Trick-or-treaters were the hungry and poor who went door-to-door for soul cakes -- cakes for Christened souls -- as they prayed for souls in purgatory. Costumes were worn for the same reason as the Celtic tradition. Although, Jack-o-lanterns represented souls in purgatory. Again with the purgatory, yikes!
As for the good ole U S of A, Puritans were pure as the driven snow and wanted none of this nonsense until the mass of impure Scottish and Irish immigrants flooded the country and brought their traditions.
Assimilation because aren't we all just mongrels at the pound?
Religion isn't forced upon us as it was in our not-so-distant past. We are free to believe what we want with only hate speech, nasty looks and judgement from the religious right. That's all well and good but there is something comforting about tradition to me, something prideful. Maybe it's because I grew up in chaos but I hope people share historical tales of Halloween, as well as other major holidays, and stop making it all about the Almighty Dollar and this Gimme Gimme Gimme culture we've been brewing.
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