Halloween Traditions
In a couple days it will be Halloween and the GREAT PUMPKIN will make its annual appearance. To be completely transparent, I’ve never actually seen the GREAT PUMPKIN, I’ve only heard about it while watching Charlie Brown. Like Charlie, I always struggled with Halloween, not because random strangers throughout the local neighborhoods dropped a rock in my bag, but because I never grew up trick or treating. You see, way back when…we lived in the country, no one ever came to our door to get a handful of candy, and the possibility of us kids going to the neighbor’s house required hitchhiking, which of course, we never allowed to do.
Now that I am older and have raised a couple of wonderful kids of my own and now being a very active grandparent, I see more clearly how the system works and I see that maybe my parents may have had a somewhat dim view of the spooky holiday. My dad was the most generous man to strangers that I have ever known. If kids came to our door on Halloween he would more than likely loaded them up with a bushel of corn or some canned pickles. We never had to have that theory put to the test though, because we were too far off the beaten path and thus my knowledge of Halloween had to be acquired from watching Charlie Brown.
In the late 60’s and early 70’s, the prime molding years of my young life, there were only three channels on the TV and seemingly every six O’clock news program, including the most trusted man in America, Walter Cronkite, would air stories about razorblades and needles being stealthily slid into chocolate candy all over the fruited plains. They would then try to make the story a little less terrifying by highlighting the fact that hospitals were providing free X-rays of your bags of sugar filled, teeth rotting candy. I can’t imagine showing up at Mercy Hospital today with a couple of pillow cases full of candy and asking where the x-ray machines are. It all seemed so normal back then. Luckily, we never had to take any candy to be scanned for razorblades and needles, we simple ate our bushel of corn and chased down that home grown delight with some canned pickles as we watched Charlie Brown collect rocks in his trick or treat bag.
Let’s discuss Trick or Treat? Where did that come from? No one, and I mean no one ever “tricks” anymore, it’s all treat. Of course, I had to do some research on the subject to find out why and what I found was somewhat interesting, nothing fascinating, just a few “ahah” moments was all I got out of my trip to the library.
In my extensive and scholarly research I discovered that the Celtic New Year or Samhain is on November 1 and those Celtic folks of long ago, believed that the dead would cross paths with the living with each flip of the calendar. The consequences of the living meeting the dead is catastrophic so, to keep the dead from wrestling the living into their world, the good Celtics devised a plan to dress up in ghoulish costumes in order to trick the dead folks into believing that the living folks were already one of them. Sort of a “nothing to see here” tactic. It was such a successful and ingenious plan that we still see it on practice today not only at Halloween each year but with every election cycle where politicians use the same stealthy tactics of… “I’m really not anything like you but I pretend to be”. Hope that adds some clarity to the conversation for you.
Moving on now…Apparently the “trick” part of the tradition stemmed from the requirement that economically challenged children dance or sing for the occupants of the wealthier homes they begged. This also seems very close to modern day politicians, but I digress. I for one, am very happy that children are no longer required to earn their goodies in such a fashion. Their only requirement is to ring the door bell and then simply hold out their goody bag and wait for a deposit. That’s a heck of gig right there. Now that I think of it, the lessons learned by such actions are quite similar to politicians, big government and entitlement programs, I digress again…apologies.
Back on track now. Another reason that the “Trick” part of “trick or treating” may have evaporated over time is that later, in history of the world, the Catholics sort of highjacked the “goody collecting” tradition and renamed the Celtic New Year as “All Hallows Eve” or “All Souls Eve”. As a part of this newly renamed tradition, single young women would perform tricks of their own on All Hallows Eve, in hopes that they would discover the identities of their future husbands — and ideally be married by the following year.” Not that I am very learned on the subject, but I believe that “ladies of the evening” may refer to their patrons as “tricks” from time to time. Let that one sink in for a second…
Now, if that didn’t get your attention, maybe this will. I will delicately try to clean up this mess I’ve made by informing you that the “tricks” of traditions long ago encouraged young women to conduct such tricks as; throwing apple peels or cracking eggs into a bowl in hopes that their future husband’s initials would appear. One even had them looking in the mirror in a candlelit room to see a reflection of their beloved’s face. We all know that that one didn’t catch on very well, but the next time you go bobbing for apples, you’ll understand the symbolism a little better. I wonder if my initials (RAG) ever appeared in any cracked egg bowls? I am sure that seeing RAG spelled out in the apple peels would have scared the buhgeesus out of some young ladies.
Happy Halloween everyone- TRICK or TREAT!