From Our Family to Yours: Happy Halloween.

Halloween or Hallowe’en also known as All Hallows’ Eve, is a yearly celebration observed in a number of countries on October 31, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows’ Day. It initiates the triduum of Hallowmas, the time in the liturgical yeardedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed believers.

According to many scholars, All Hallows’ Eve is a Christianized feast initially influenced by Celtic harvest festivals, with possible pagan roots, particularly theGaelic Samhain. Other academics maintain that it originated independently of Samhain and has solely Christian roots.^[12]

Typical festive Halloween activities include trick-or-treating (or the related “guising” or “trunk-or-treating”), attending costume parties, decorating, carving pumpkinsinto jack-o’-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing, visiting haunted attractions, playing pranks, telling scary stories, and watching horror films.

Costumes

Halloween costumes are traditionally modeled after supernatural figures such as vampires, monsters, ghosts, skeletons, witches, and devils. Over time, in the United States the costume selection extended to include popular characters from fiction, celebrities, and generic archetypes such as ninjas and princesses.

Dressing up in costumes and going “guising” was prevalent in Ireland and Scotland at Halloween by the late 19th century.Costuming became popular for Halloween parties in the US in the early 20th century, as often for adults as for children. The first mass-produced Halloween costumes appeared in stores in the 1930s when trick-or-treating was becoming popular in the United States.

Rev. Dr. Eddie J. Smith, in his book Halloween, Hallowed Be Thy Name, offers a religious perspective to the wearing of costumes on All Hallows’ Eve, suggesting that dressing up as fictional creatures “who at one time caused us to fear and tremble”, people are able to poke fun at the Christian figure of Satan. Images of skeletons and the dead are traditional decorations used as memento mori.

Around the world

The traditions and importance of Halloween vary greatly among countries that observe it. In Scotland and Ireland, traditional Halloween customs include children dressing up in costume going “guising”, holding parties, while other practices in Ireland include lighting bonfires, and having firework displays. In Brittany children would set candles in skulls in graveyards. Mass transatlantic immigration in the 19th century popularized Halloween in North America, and celebration in the United States and Canada has had a significant impact on how the event is observed in other nations. This larger North American influence, particularly in iconic and commercial elements, has extended to places such as South America, Australia, New Zealand, (most) continental Europe, Japan, and other parts of East Asia.  In the Philippines, on the night of Halloween, Filipinos return to their hometowns and purchase candles and flowers, in preparation for the following All Saints Day and All Souls Day (Araw ng Patay) on 1st November.