Happy All Hallows’ Eve

halloween (Photo credit: BEE FREE – PGrandicelli [the social bee])

According to Wikipeadia, Halloween is a celebration of the eve of All Hallows’ Day which is a western Christian feast. I never realized that, when as a child, we celebrated ‘Mischievous night’, which is what we called it where I grew up in Yorkshire, that it was part of the Halloween feast. It also includes bobbing for apples, costume parties and carving out pumpkins into ‘Jack-o-lanterns’. The term Halloween itself appears to mean ‘hallowed evening’ or ‘holy evening’ which, in turn is derived from the Scottish term ‘All hallows eve’.

It’s the time of year when we celebrate the saints and martyrs and those others who are no longer with us and begins the ‘Triduum of Hallowmas’. Many believe this to be stolen from a pagan, possibly Celtic harvest festival celebration and adopted by the Christian faith as a time to remember the dead. In more recent times it has become a night where children (and some adults too!) dress up in ghostly robes and imitate witches, ghouls and goblins and then appear at our door. They challenge us to ‘trick or treat’ and we invariably play our part and chose treat, which strangely, we then have to give to them.

Once the children have been settled in their beds and the excitement of the day ebbs away, the adults dress up in exactly the same way and attend parties. For that one day it seems perfectly normal to see witches and zombies walking the streets.

So whatever you’re doing, if you’re celebrating or not. Have a great day