Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2006 07:03:20 -0500
To: darlene@admmail.uwaterloo.ca
From: "N. Matthews" lighthousenm@gmail.com
Subject: an explanation of Halloween
Hi, Darlene! I just received this very good explanation of Halloween from a free, daily e-list I receive from "The Writer's Almanac with Garrison
Keillor." I forwarded it to the International Spouses' Group and I thought I'd pass it on to you, too. It gives a good explanation of the history
of the holiday, as well as what happens today. This piece comes out of the U.S., but the statistics are probably true for Canada, too. Happy
Halloween! --Nancy Matthews 
TUESDAY, 31 OCTOBER, 2006
Literary and Historical Notes:
Today is Halloween, one of the oldest holidays in the Western European tradition.
Today, 70 percent of American households will open their doors and offer candy to strangers, most of them children, 50 percent of Americans will
take photographs of family or friends in costume, and the nation as a whole will spend more than 6 billion dollars. In terms of dollars spent, it
is the second most popular holiday of the year in this country, after Christmas.
For the Celtic people of northeastern Europe, November 1st was New Year's Day and October 31 was the last night of the year. Celts believed it was
the night that spirits, ghosts, faeries, and goblins freely walked the earth. It was Pope Gregory III in the eighth century A.D. who tried to turn
Halloween into a Christian holiday. Christians had been celebrating All Saints Day on May 13. Pope Gregory III decided to move the holiday to
November 1st, to divert Northern Europeans from celebrating an old pagan ritual. Instead of providing food and drink to the spirits, Christians
were encouraged to provide food and drink to the poor. And instead of dressing up like animals and ghosts, Christians were encouraged to dress up
like their favorite saints.
In the United States, Puritans tried to outlaw Halloween, in part because of its association with Catholicism. So it was the Irish Catholics who
brought Halloween to this country, when they immigrated here in great numbers after the potato famine in the 1840s. By the late 1800s, Victorian
women's magazines began to offer suggestions for celebrating Halloween in wholesome ways, with barn dancing and apple bobbing. And by the early
20th century, it became a holiday for children more than adults. In 1920, The Ladies' Home Journal made the first known reference to children going
door to door for candy, and by the 1950s it was a universal practice in this country. By the end of the 20th century, 92 percent of America's
children were trick-or-treating.
Halloween no longer has any real connection to the festival it came from. Unlike most major holidays in this country, it is not a religious
holiday, it does not celebrate an event in our nation's past, it does not involve traveling to visit family, it doesn't even give us a day off
work. But it gives us the chance to try out other identities. For one day, people can feel free to dress as the opposite gender, as criminals, as
superheroes, celebrities, animals, or even inanimate objects.
The Writer's Almanac is produced by Prairie Home Productions and presented by American Public Media.
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