It’s really not that difficult to frighten the kids, as a big adult. Getting the wee tots to giggle a little bit takes a lot of rehersal time to accomplish, however, it is really rewarding to do, especially now that every Halloween show around has a claim to be scarier than the next. Think about it, most communities have a harvest festival event in every district. We want to surprise the people who go, to entertain our audience.

This year, most house goers are prepared to be frightened, and many have already experienced most of the possible house or woods scares that could be delivered – we are talking about children under the age of twelve here, who have gone to two or three events every Hallowe’en, rather than going out to Trick or Treat.

Of course, some of these tag-lines can also be used on postcards, stickers, greeting cards and invites, with the idea of making someone laugh in mind.

These one-liners can also be worked into any local presentation show, to give the kids a laugh.

Boo-berries for the ghost?

The ghoul got lost in the goulash.

I’m here because I left the sink running in the employee washroom. My boss was enraged.

Brother, could you spare a few fangs?

I’m only here for the leftover candy.

Look, I’m trying to scare you hoping that you’ll drop all your chocolates.

I’m stuck here until National Cornchips Day, in this corn maze.

My flying vacuum cleaner is in the repair shop, and I cannot get the broomstick to work.

You think you’re scared – I’m here, hiding from the dentist, Jack the Dentist.

I’m here because I ate all the Hallowe’en candy. My spouse was enraged.

This is based on a form created by the German ambassador to the United Nations, who told the joke on Comedy Central – “I left the toilet seat up last night. My wife was enraged.”

Is this the local Red Cross? I’m here to donate blood.

Guess who is here for Fangsgiving dinner?

I’m here because I left the teabag in the iced tea. My kids were enraged.

Excuse me, I got locked out of the coffin again.

Maybe you think I’m just a ghost of my former self.

It’s just a fashion show here. The outfits are a bit more tacky than usual.

Welcome to the world-wide web, oops, the spider web.

Fangs for the memories.

The Ancient World

The ancient Celts believed that the border between this world and the Otherworld (realm of the dead) became thin on Samhain, allowing spirits (both harmless and harmful) to pass through. Families would invite their ancestors to their celebration and practice divination. It is believed that the Celts wore costumes and masks to disguise themselves as harmful spirits. Thus, warding them off and staying safe from them. Bonfires played a large role in the festival.

Traditionally, the Celts would hallow out large turnips, carve faces into them and place them in their windows to ward off evil spirits. The carving of pumpkins is associated with Halloween in North America where pumpkins are both readily available and much larger – making them much easier to carve than turnips.

The Middle Ages

Children going door to door saying “Trick or treat” refers to a “threat” to perform mischief on the homeowners or their property if no treat is given. In some parts of Scotland children will perform a trick to earn their treat, such as singing a song or telling a ghost story.

Trick-or-treating resembles the late medieval practice of souling, when poor folk would go door to door on Hallowmas (November 1), receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day (November 2).

Modern Day

Today, Halloween is big business where companies will often start promoting a month in advance. Halloween use to be just for children. Before, it seemed silly for adults to participate in dressing up. Unless they are with children, you probably won’t see many adults in costumes tick-or-treating. However, it’s become widely accepted for adults to dress up and go to an adult Halloween party that is infused with alcohol.. I’m guessing this is just another reason to drink.

Back in my days of being a student in a special education center in New Jersey, Halloween was a fun and fancy celebration. We start the revels by coming to school dressed in costumes ranging from Disney Princesses to goblins. (At one Halloween before moving to Florida, I dressed up as one of the former types: Mulan.) Then, we walk around the school grounds, singing this merry tune:

We march along in a Halloween parade,
We march along in a Halloween parade,
Witches in tall hats,
Ghosts and black cats,
Tra-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la,
Boo! Boo! Boo!

After that merry parade, we’d come inside the gymnasium for a costume ball – with party dances a majority of us know from time to time. Virtually everyone neither complained about the religious nature of the event nor griped about how it disrupted the learning process. We just had fun each October 31 (or if that day fell on weekends, on the Fridays before).

But when I moved from New Jersey, things drastically changed when I entered the public school system. Halloweens were just ordinary days – days of learning the usual reading, writing, and arithmetic. I asked myself why there were no happy Halloween parades and no costume balls to throw. (The only one of the latter I attended was the one in which I’m dressed as a fine arts icon or person in middle school.) The occurrences of October 31 on weekdays seemed so dull to me, but why?

Public schools have minimal times for celebrations for the curricular part. Such celebrations like masquerades of goblins and ghouls disrupt the learning process and are non-essential to the curriculum. Also, schools are way too busy to celebrate Halloween because they want their students to be prepared for standardized tests. (In Florida’s case, it’s the dreaded FCAT.) Do algebra and Halloween go together? In the real world, yes, but in the context of the public school system, no.

Religious factors play a role in the public schools’ shunnings of Halloween. A majority of Fundamentalist Christians, Muslims, and Jews heavily focus on the reasons for the ban in terms of Celtic pagan roots. In days of old, Druids in Ireland celebrate their own New Year: Samhain. That holiday signals the end of their harvest season and opens doors for the evil spirits and the dead to enter into the living world.

Centuries later, Pope Gregory III moved the date of All Saints Day from its initial date of May 31 to November 1. Thus, the day before November 1 is known as the Halloween we associate. But schools don’t bother observing it with fancy costume balls and parades around the schools thanks to those roots.

I’m a Catholic, and I celebrate Halloween not just because I’m observing the eve of All Saints Day, but I’m also doing this for the fun of it. If schools want to make a concession to kids who love celebrating the holiday without sacrificing the learning process, why don’t they give them coloring pages, have them write scary stories using vocabulary words, or make Day of the Dead sugar skulls?

If they want their costumes, how about handing them out some great alternatives to a distracting, sacrilegious (to those who strongly associate Halloween with the roots of pagan Samhain) holiday? There’s no need to eradicate Halloween from the face of the earth – let those who celebrate it, well, celebrate it!

As for me, I continue to march along in or watch Halloween parades, with ghosts, black cats, and witches in tall hats.

Image via Wikipedia

It turns out that the well-known Halloween Holiday dates back to 2,000 years ago with the ancient Celtics. They celebrated their Celtic festival of Samhain on October 31 the day just before their New Year on November 1.  The Celtics believed that the night before the New Year opens up the underworld in which the dead or spirits and ghosts will return to earth. They also relied heavily upon priests to make predictions for the future harvest.

Christianity had a Saints’ Day celebration called All-Hallowmas or All-hallows on November 1. November second was All Souls’ Day to honor the dead and October 31 or the night of Samhain All hallows Eve or Halloween. During Samhain there would be dressing up of costumes of saints, angels, and devils which passes on today in which people dress up for trick or treating.

The Legend of Haunted Halloween

What began as a Celtics Season that signaled many deaths and sickness turns Halloween into a foreboding holiday in which stories and legends of haunted ghosts and haunted houses spreads. Black cats bring bad luck, the idea of witches and spells, and haunted houses.

In 18th century Ireland, women tried to predict their future husbands and cook potions and food to predict their futures.

Perhaps the haunted part sparks from the idea that the dead can be spooky and fearsome. Some may have seen apparitions or illusions of apparitions out of love or guilt. The ideology spreads as society creates haunted houses for amusement.

Famous Historical Ghost sightings include the ghost of Anne Boleyn who was hanged for witch craft in the 16th century and Benjamin Franklin in the library of American Philosophical Society in Pennsylvania and Abraham Lincoln, our 16th president who was assassinated.

Haunted Areas

Some places have haunting due to the horrific incidents that had occurred there. Famous battlefields around the world are especially haunted. Battle sites from the Civil War in the 17th century, the Somme of Northern France and World War I sites of the Gallipoli near Turkey.

New York City has been reported to have haunting by vice president Aaron Burr who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804. His specter haunts the restaurant “One if By Land, Two if By Sea”. In addition, the author Mark Twain haunts the stairwell of his old house and Poet Dylan Thomas occupies his table at the West Village’s White Horse Tavern, where he drank himself to death in 1953. 

Halloween and Pumpkins

Did you know pumpkins are fruits? They are part of the gourd family of squashes, cucumbers and melons. Pumpkins have grown in North America for five thousand years. Pumpkins are picked in October at their ripest in which they turn a bright orange.

The legend of Jack O Lantern comes from the Irish myth of a man nicknamed Stingy Jack. According to the story, Jack was invited by the Devil to have a drink with him. True to Jack’s name, he didn’t want to pay for the drinks so he actually convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin so that Jack could use it to buy their drinks. However, after the Devil obeyed Jack, Jack kept the coin instead and since he kept the coin next to silver cross the devil could not turn back. Eventually Jack freed the Devil on the condition that he couldn’t come back to bother him for one year. Upon returning the next year, the Devil got tricked again, this time the devil would not be freed from coming back down a tree since Jack carved a sign of a cross on the tree’s bark unless the Devil does not come to haunt Jack for ten more years. Soon after, Jack died. Yet God would not allow Jack into heaven nor did the Devil into hell keeping his word of not claiming Jack’s soul. Jack was sent off into the dark with only a burning coal. Jack put the coal into a carved-out turnip and the Irish has ever since named Jack’s journey as Jack of the Lantern or Jack O’ Lantern.

People in Scotland and Ireland started carve frightful faces into turnips and potatoes to scare away Stingy Jack and other wandering spirits. Beets were used in England and later pumpkins in America.

Halloween and trick or treat

When Halloween spread to America through Immigrants, the idea of trick or treat begins. During Colonial America people would dress up and go from house to house to ask for food or money. They would also hold parties to share ghost stories, dance and sing. Some also played pranks and mischief.

Trick or Treating took its origins from All Souls Day in which families would give soul cakes to the poor so that in return they would pray for the family’s dead relatives.

Slowly children would visit neighborhood houses for treats. 

Image via Wikipedia

Sources

Personal Experience

“Origins” History.com

“Historical Stories” History.com

“History of Jack O Lantern” History.com

Another long weekend is in store for us as the Muslims celebrate Eid’l Adha or the Feast of Sacrifice on November 27 (Friday) and 28 (Saturday). The Feast is Sacrifice is celebrated by the Muslims after the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. November 30 (Monday) is also a holiday, commemorating Bonifacio Day, one of the Philippine’s wartime heroes. Expect heavy traffic on both North and South Luzon Express Ways as a lot of Filipinos will definitely grab the opportunity to go for a vacation

Malacañang announced these holidays early Thursday morning October 22, 2009.

Halloween named after all hallows eve is the night before the “all hallows” is observed on November 1^st. Hallow, in old English, meant sanctify. Christians would observe All Hallows Day to honor all saints in heaven. It was one of the most significant observances of the church year. Pope Boniface IV introduced the All Saints Day in order to replace the pagan festival of the dead. This was originally celebrated on May 13^th, but was later moved to November 1^st by Gregory III.

The origins of Halloween Date back to the Celtic’s, who lived over 2000 years ago. The Celts celebrated a festival of Samhain (sow-in), it was celebrated though out the United kingdom, Ireland, and northern France. This celebration was to mark the ending of the summer harvest, the end of a year, and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time that has always been considered associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, a boundary or sorts was opened, a boundary between the world of the living and that of the dead. It is on October 31st that the Celts believed that the ghosts and spirits of the dead returned. The Celts believe these ghosts ruined crops and cause trouble. It was also believed that the Celtic priests(druids) could easily make future predictions on this night. These prophecies were of vital importance to the Celtic people, it helped provide them with a sense of safety and comfort during the long, dark winter.

This Samhain festival was an exciting event in the Celt time; The priests built Huge sacred bonfires, where the people sacrificed crops and animals to the Celtic Deities. They dressed in costumes typically made of animal heads and skins, and they played games of prediction, trying to tell one another fortunes.

By A.D. 43, the Romans had conquered the majority of the Celts and for hundreds of years they ruled their lands. The festival of the Samhain was combined with Roman traditions. By the 800s the influence of Christianity had spread through out the Celtic lands, and in the 7th century pope Boniface IV designated November 1 as “All Saints Day”. It was widely believed that the Pope was attempting to replace the Celtic’s festival of the dead with a related Church sanctioned holiday. The celebration has also been known as, “All-Hallows Even, All-Hallowma’s, Hallow E’en and of course Halloween.

Even later along the time line in AD 1000, the church would make November 2nd All souls Day to honour the dead. As the Celts, this day was celebrated with bonfires, paraded and of course dressing up in costumes.

For thousand of years people have believed halloween night to be associated with the dead, ghosts and spirits. And, because of those beliefs and the sacrifices they made we today have a tradition that is less dramatic but still exciting and a bit scary. Have fun this Halloween and remember the history that is associated with this dark night…and remember that ghosts could be about pulling tricks while you’re getting treats……….. For real….